MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

•  •  •  OF  NEW  GERMANY-  •  • 


PERCIVAL    POLLARD 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


MASKS  and  MINSTRELS 
of  NEW  GERMANY 

By  Percival   Pollard 


JOHN    W.    LUCE   AND   COMPANY 
BOSTON      ::::::      1911 


Copyright,  1911 
BY  L.  E.  BASSETT 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

CHAPTER   ONE 

AN   EVENING    IN    A   GERMAN    CABARET 

A  form  of  nocturnal  entertainment  adopted  from 

Paris  —  Much  fun  and  a  little  art  1-9 


CHAPTER    TWO 
THE  TTBERBRETTL'  MOVEMENT 

The  effort  of  poets  and  musicians  to  improve  the 
German  music-hall  —  Success  in  Munich, 
Failure  in  Berlin  —  Von  Wolzogen,  Bier- 
baum,  Von  Recnicek,  Oscar  Straus,  and 
Simplicissimus 10-21 

CHAPTER   THREE 

ON    COLLECTING    AND   ON    MINSTRELSY 

Bierbaum's  magazine,  Die  Insel  —  The  anti- 
quarian period  following  the  death  of 
Goethe  —  Revival  of  the  spirit  of  the  trou- 
badours —  The  lyric's  place  in  our  life  .  22-34 

CHAPTER    FOUR 

THE    PIONEERS   OF   GERMANY'S    NEW    NATIONALISM 

Rebellion  against  spineless  literature  —  The  in- 
surgents of  the  middle  'eighties  —  Bleibtreu, 
M.  G.  Conrad,  the  Hart  brothers,  Hermann 
Conradi,  Johannes  Schlaf,  Arno  Holz,  Maxi- 
milian Harden,  Hermann  Bahr  —  An  Amer- 
ican equivalent,  the  pamphlet  period  —  The 
inspiration  for  Hauptmann's  "  Before  Sun- 
rise" .  35-56 


2041377 


vi  CONTENTS 

PAOB 

CHAPTER    FIVE 

DETLEV    VON    LILIENCRON 

Nietzsche's  influence  on  German  literature  —  The 
first  note  of  true  nationalism  —  Soldier, 
country  gentleman,  magistrate  and  poet  — 
Bierbaum's  eulogy 57-83 

CHAPTER   SIX 

OTTO   ERICH     II  \i:  I  l.i.lti:  N 

A  victim  of  temperament  —  Facility  in  anecdote 
and  success  in  the  theatre  —  Selma  Hart- 
leben's  glimpses  of  his  personality  —  Her- 
mann Bahr's  "  Concert "  outdone  in  real  life  84-120 

CHAPTER   SEVEN 

OTTO    JULIUS   BIERBAUM 

Most  musical  minstrel  of  our  time  —  The  novel 
which  forecast  the  iiberbrettl'  —  Wedekind's 
career  hinted  in  "  Stilpe  "  —  Troubadour, 
discoverer  of  fellow-artists,  novelist,  and 
traveler  —  The  first  fine  literature  of  motor- 
travel  —  His  like,  for  irony  and  independ- 
ence, hard  to  find  in  English  .  .  .  121-177 

CHAPTER   EIGHT 

A   FEW   FORMALISTS 

The  Nietzsche-Liliencron  parentage  —  Stephan 
George,  Max  Dauthendey,  Rainer  Maria 
Rilke,  Hugo  Salus,  Richard  Schaukal,  Karl 
August  Klein 178-191 

CHAPTER    NINE 

RICHARD    DEHMEL 

Survivor  from  the  Nietzsche  period  —  Some  con- 
temporaries, Gustav  Falke,  Ludwig  Finckh, 
A.  W.  Heymel,  Rudolf  Schroeder  —  The  pas- 
sionate transformations  of  Dehmel's  feeling 
and  art  — A  Cosmic  Poet  .  .  .  192-204 


CONTENTS  vii 

PAGE 

CHAPTER   TEN 

MERE    ENTERTAINMENT 

Best-sellers  and  humorists  — "  Rideamus,"  T. 
Etzel,  Gustav  Meyrinck,  Thomas  Mann,  and 
Marie  Madeleine  —  Madeleine's  American 
equivalent,  Natalie  Barney  —  Margarethe 
Boehme 205-214 

CHAPTER   ELEVEN 

EHNST    VON    WOLZOGEN 

A  versatility,  in  more  than  forty  volumes  —  Share 
in  the  UberbrettP  —  Singing  his  own  songs 
to  his  own  music  —  The  "  Maybride "  in 
Wiesbaden  —  Portrait  of  Liszt  in  one  of  his 
novels  —  Librettos  for  Richard  Strauss  215-226 

CHAPTER   TWELVE 

DRAMA    AND   FRANK    WEDEKIND 

Max  Halbe,  Ludwig  Fulda,  Ernst  Hardt,  Otto 
Ernst  —  Wedekind's  bizarre  application  of 
the  Nietzsche  doctrine  —  His  tragedies  of 
sex  illumination  —  Partner  in  the  Dberbrettl' 
movement  —  Youthful  ideals  squandered,  bit- 
ter irony  the  residue  —  The  playwright  of  the 
abnormal  —  Preoccupation  with  the  physical 

—  Psychologist  of  our  primordial  savagery    227-256 

CHAPTER    THIRTEEN 
LUDWIG  THOMA'S  "  MORAL  " 

More  amusing  than  "  Mrs.  Warren's  Profession  " 

—  A    pertinent    lesson    for    prudes    in    New 
York,   Chicago    and    London  —  Police   inter- 
ference with  things  artistic       .         .        .        257-264 

CHAPTER    FOURTEEN 

VIENNA'S  ESSENCE,  SCHNITZLER 

The  German  Map  of  Temperament  —  Dehmel, 
philosopher  in  his  passion;  Schnitzler,  rival- 


viii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

ing  the  Parisians  in  the  finesse  of  philander- 
ing —  Munich  the  stronghold  of  artistic  lib- 
erty, where  the  old  Minnesinger  spirit  came 
to  life  again  —  Schnitzler's  voice  is  the  voice 
of  Vienna  —  Roda  Roda,  foremost  portrayer 
of  the  semi-Oriental  borderlands,  civil  and 
military 265-283 

CHAPTER    FIFTEEN 

HUGO    VON    HOFFMANSTHAt 

A  poet  of  the  theatre  —  Rivals  D'Annunzio  for 
rhetorical  music  —  Librettos  for  Richard 
Strauss 284-289 

CHAPTER   SIXTEEN 

BAHB    AKO   FINIS 

Leadership  of  the  Young  Vienna  movement  — 
Vienna's  triumph  with  "  The  Merry  Widow  " 
attracts  theatrical  agents  from  abroad  — 
"The  Concert"  definitely  stills  the  rumor  of 
Bahr's  being,  like  all  the  Viennese,  "  merely 
clever "  —  Journalist,  man  of  the  world, 
critic,  novelist,  playwright  .  .  .  290-299 


Masks  and  Minstrels 
of  New  Germany 


Masks  and  Minstrek 
of  New  Germany 


AN  EVENING  IN  A  GERMAN  CABARET 

SOMETHING  after  midnight,  one  springtime 
of  four  or  five  years  ago,  a  friend  and  I  were 
homing  to  our  quarters  in  the  old  Rue  de 
Varenne.  It  was  a  wonderful  night  for  a  walk 
from  the  boulevards  to  the  Left  Bank;  you 
could  smell  faintly  the  wondrous  blend  of  blos- 
soms in  the  Elysian  Fields,  of  acrid  tar,  of  mist 
from  the  Seine,  and  many  other  intangible 
odors  —  the  smell  of  Paris  when  the  year  is 
young.  Yet  my  friend  was  not  happy,  and  re- 
fused to  believe  a  certain  remark  of  mine.  He 
was  not,  you  see,  in  the  best  of  tempers,  and 
though  Paris  had  just  been  distinctly  rude  to 
him,  he  refused  to  hear  it  belittled. 

Our  evening  had  been  spent,  for  the  most 

part,  at  the  Marigny.     The  "  revue "  in  the 

promenoir  had  entertained  us  as  much  as  the 

"  revue  "  on  the  stage,  which  was  not  saying 

1 


2  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

much.  By  way  of  turning  our  boredom  into 
other  channels,  my  friend  insisted  upon  coffee 
in  one  of  the  many  garish  places  between  the 
Opera  and  the  Vaudeville.  He  chose  one  noto- 
rious as  having  nothing  to  say  to  Parisians,  but 
only  to  strangers:  Brazilians,  Anglo-Saxons 
or  Germans;  but  who  was  I  to  dissuade  him? 
Some  people  proclaim  their  familiarity  with 
Paris,  yet  never  discover  that  the  places  they 
frequent  are  merely  the  obvious  traps  for 
greenhorns.  Well,  we  had  our  coffee,  we  lis- 
tened to  the  music,  and  we  observed  the  elabo- 
rate females  who  were  more  or  less  professionally 
present.  Then  came  the  incident  which  ruined 
my  friend's  temper,  and  left  him  inaccessible  to 
truth. 

The  bill,  when  we  came  to  settle,  was  exactly 
twice  what  it  should  have  been.  My  friend 
spluttered.  The  waiter  shrugged  his  shoulders, 
lifted  his  eyebrows  and  presumed  Monsieur  for- 
got that  it  was  after  midnight,  that  the  music 
was  unusually  fine,  and  that  the  ladies  were 
present  in  great  numbers.  After  midnight,  for 
the  music,  and  for  the  ladies,  it  was  well  known, 
he  reminded  us,  that  the  prices  .  .  .  and  so  on. 
My  friend  made  the  usual  mistake:  he  tried  to 
take  it  out  of  the  waiter.  "  I  sha'n't  tip  him !  " 
he  growled,  and  he  didn't.  He  put  down  upon 
the  table  the  exact  amount  our  little  platters 
indicated,  and  not  a  sou  more.  But  he  had 


IN  A  GERMAN  CABARET  3 

reckoned  without  his  waiter.  Trust  a  Parisian 
to  seize  a  cue  for  wit !  As  we  got  up,  the  waiter 
swept  the  silver  from  the  cloth  with  an  air  for 
all  to  observe,  and  as  my  friend  passed  him, 
bowed  low  before  him. 

"  Merci,  mon  prince ! "  said  the  waiter,  as  he 
bowed,  and  in  that  "  Mon  prince ! "  was  as 
much  sarcasm  as  any  two  words  in  any  tongue 
could  hold. 

My  friend  pretended  he  had  not  heard;  but 
he  had ;  his  desire  to  dispute  with  me  made  that 
clear.  The  fact  was,  he  was  in  a  most  villain- 
ous temper.  So  that  my  harmless  little  remark 
definitely  enraged  him.  Yet  all  I  said  was  this ; 
as  we  were  crossing  in  front  of  the  Opera,  into 
streets  that  were  now  silent,  deserted,  almost 
dark: 

"  At  this  hour,  when,  as  we  see,  Paris  is  go- 
ing to  bed,  Berlin  is  just  waking  up." 

A  flood,  nothing  less  than  a  flood,  of  rage 
came  at  me  from  my  friend.  There  was  Mont- 
martre,  I  must  remember;  there  was  the  Cafe 
du  Pantheon  on  the  Boul'  Miche',  and  there 
were  the  boulevards  —  where,  as  he  did  not  re- 
mind me,  he  had  just  been  robbed.  As  he 
raved,  we  walked,  none  the  less,  through  streets 
darker  and  darker,  more  and  more  deserted. 
Silence  was  all  about  us ;  the  noise  of  our 
disputing  was  as  a  clamor  against  empty 
walls. 


4  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

It  was  true,  my  maddened  friend  to  the  con- 
trary, that  Berlin  is  of  all  great  capitals  the 
one  which  is  liveliest  at  night.  I  thought,  as 
I  walked  toward  the  Left  Bank  that  night  in 
Paris,  of  just  such  nights,  several  years  before, 
in  which  the  nocturnal  wakefulness  of  Berlin 
had  come  home  to  me. 

Especially  I  thought  of  one  night,  in  one  of 
the  first  years  of  our  new  century,  when,  stroll- 
ing along  the  garishly  brilliant  Leipziger- 
strasse  at  an  hour  wherein  most  people  are 
thinking  of  going  to  bed,  I  was  struck  by  an 
insinuating,  fantastically  outlined  sign :  "  Zum 
Klimperkasten." 

The  words  arrested  me.  Their  meaning,  if 
you  would  have  it  in  English,  is,  as  nearly  as 
possible :  "  At  the  Sign  of  the  Hurdy  Gurdy." 
What  was  going  on  here,  I  wondered,  "  Zum 
Klimperkasten  "  ? 

And  then,  for  answer,  there  came  to  me  a 
memory  of  something  I  had  read  some  little  time 
before  —  something  of  Otto  Julius  Bierbaum's. 
Something  in  which  there  had  been  those  rarest 
qualities,  a  new  sensation,  an  emotion,  an 
awakening  to  new  interests,  to  charming  revela- 
tions. 

I  looked  again  at  the  sign;  recalled  again 
what,  in  that  earlier  day,  had  happened  as  a 
result  of  a  certain  first  encounter  with  Otto 
Julius  in  a  dingy  lane  of  Hamburg;  and  the 


IN  A  GERMAN  CABARET  5 

next  moment  I  opened  the  door  "  Zum  Klimper- 
kasten." 

That  was  my  first,  though  not  by  a  good  deal 
my  last,  experience  of  a  German  cabaret. 

ORIGINALLY  out  of  the  Cafe,  by  Genius,  the 
breed  of  cabarets  has  shown  many  forms  of 
bastardy,  some  amusing,  some  disgusting. 
Often  merely  brutish,  as  in  Aristide  Bruant's 
place  in  Paris  or  the  old  Whitechapel  Club  in 
Chicago,  and  often  tiresome,  the  central  idea 
was  plausible :  it  was  a  place  wherein  talent  was 
to  improvise  itself  for  the  public  appreciation. 
It  was  for  the  Minnesingers  of  our  period  what 
once  a  baronial  courtyard  was.  There  were 
such  coffee  houses  as  Will's ;  you  may  trace 
the  idea  in  the  Fra^ois  Premier,  in  Pousset's, 
and  in  the  Chat  Noir.  In  one  country  coffee, 
in  another  absinthe,  in  another  beer  was  the  tap  ; 
the  names  and  externals  might  change,  but  the 
central  idea  was  the  same.  Whatever  in  songs, 
poems,  stories,  in  ballads,  in  melody  or  color, 
had,  in  this  or  that  smoke-dimmed  corner,  the 
odor  of  the  spontaneous  —  that  was  the  thing ! 

A  little  this  side  of  midnight  one  went  to  the 
cabaret.  In  one  case  you  paid  a  mark ;  in  an- 
other less;  another  more.  In  all  you  had  to 
buy,  if  you  wished  to  be  inconspicuous,  a  bottle 
of  wine,  champagne  or  a  cheaper  article.  The 
cheapest  Moselle  cost  75  pfennigs  the  half-bot- 


6  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

tie.  In  some  cabarets  you  could  not  order  a 
plain  liqueur  without  having  had  wine  first. 
The  wine  was  invariably  bad;  but  you  did  not 
have  to  be  fool  enough  to  drink  it.  Smoking 
was  general.  You  could  usually  eat  some  sort 
of  supper;  so  far  was  commerce  the  cabaret's 
ally  that  in  many  cases  restaurants  were  affili- 
ated. 

Good  humor  and  good  behavior  surrounded 
you.  You  felt  yourself  among  persons  of  in- 
telligence and  good  looks,  into  whose  social 
standing  it  was  impertinent  to  inquire.  The 
ladies  might  not  be  of  the  world,  but  they  were 
of  the  politer  half;  though  not  in  uniform, 
there  were  plenty  of  officers  visible  to  the  know- 
ing eye.  A  room  scarce  as  large  as  a  lecture 
hall.  Tables  with  white  napery;  long-necked 
blonde  bottles ;  champagne  coolers.  A  slightly 
raised  platform  holding  a  piano.  At  the  piano 
a  youth,  extracting  pleasant  improvisations, 
accompaniments  to  the  general  laughter  and 
chatter.  On  to  the  platform  passed,  presently, 
a  smooth-shaven  person  who,  pleasantly,  in  con- 
versational tone,  reminded  the  company  that,  as 
they  knew,  the  cabaret  was  the  avenue  for  pub- 
licity of  many  budding  talents;  he  had  the 
pleasure  of  introducing  Herr  Lautensack. 

Enter,  then,  Herr  Lautensack,  a  poet.  Yes, 
no  more  than  that:  just  a  poet.  Not  necessa- 
rily of  the  slovenliness  or  shabbiness  pretended 


IN  A  GERMAN  CABARET  7 

by  certain  conventions ;  no  fine  eye  in  frenzy 
rolling;  just  a  modern  poet  who,  perhaps,  went 
to  the  same  tailor  that  you  did.  First  he  gave 
a  passionate  lyric;  you  heard  echoes  of  Swin- 
burne, Dowson  or  Symons.  .  .  Then  an  excur- 
sion into  pure  nonsense,  as  of  Lear  or  Burgess. 
.  .  .  Yet  always  an  approach,  a  definite  ap- 
proach to  art.  A  something  that  the  music- 
hall  of  before  the  Uberbrettl'  had  not  known. 

The  audience  applauded  the  poet  as  heartily 
as,  some  moments  before,  it  had  applauded  the 
little  Viennese  with  the  soulful  eyes  who  had 
sung  a  ballad,  the  suggestion  in  which  left 
nothing  to  the  imagination.  The  public  did  not 
get  up  and  leave  when  the  poet  appeared.  For 
the  poet  of  the  cabaret,  like  the  cabaret  itself, 
had  —  mindful  of  the  Uberbrettl',  and  mindful 
also  of  the  champagne  —  come  to  the  quick  per- 
ception of  immediate  art ;  he  entertained,  enter- 
tained unfalteringly,  even  where  he  also  shocked 
or  stimulated.  Even  the  poems,  impassioned  or 
absurd,  had  always  to  have  the  quick  dramatic 
climax  of  comedy  or  tragedy. 

The  master  of  ceremonies  came  and  went,  in- 
troducing singers  of  chansonettes,  tellers  of 
stories,  players  of  piano  parodies.  His  was 
simply  the  old,  old  method  of  the  British  music- 
hall  Chairman  made  more  intimate.  Always 
the  conversational  tone,  however ;  occasional 
dialogues  between  platform  and  audience;  the 


8  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

intimacy  of  a  public  salon  where  no  laws  save 
those  of  taste  ruled.  You  heard,  perhaps,  little 
that  you  might  not  hear  elsewhere;  but  you 
heard  it  differently.  You  felt  you  had  part  in 
a  pleasant  conspiracy  in  entertainment.  The 
songs  were  written  by  persons  present;  the 
composer  was  the  gentleman  at  the  piano;  yet 
the  result  was  profitable  as  well  as  artistic ;  the 
public  bought  those  songs  at  the  shops ;  and 
those  writers  and  composers  and  performers 
had  the  air  of  being  prosperous.  Everything 
was  cosy  and  intimate.  Occasionally  there  were 
obviously  unrehearsed  improvisations,  however 
much  in  the  main  your  sophistication  might  sus- 
pect collusion  in  some  of  this  intimacy.  Sudden 
choruses  of  parodic  ditties  were  gravely  ap- 
plauded by  the  master  of  ceremonies.  Compli- 
ments and  the  reverse  ricocheted  between  the 
stage  and  the  audience. 

The  chief  novelty,  if  you  came  to  the  cabaret 
fresh  from  other  climes,  was  the  appeal  to  the 
intellect.  There  was  no  horseplay.  The  wit 
was  sometimes  broad,  but  always  keen;  you 
could  have  smiled  at  it  in  print.  .  .  .  Apply 
that  test  to  the  generality  in  English,  and  shud- 
der! .  .  .  Memorable  was  a  parody  of  the 
great  Erl-King  poem,  in  which  the  father,  rid- 
ing with  his  sick  child  through  the  Sieges- 
Allee,  sees  him  die  in  agony  finally  when  that 
supreme  horror  in  marble,  the  Roland  von  Ber- 


IN  A  GERMAN  CABABET  9 

lin  statue,  is  reached.  Berlin,  careless  of  the  im- 
perial taste  in  art,  roared  with  laughter.  At 
passionate  serenades  to  curdle  County  Council 
and  Comstock  blood,  and  at  much  else  in  the 
cabaret,  Berlin  laughed  as  long,  always,  as  they 
had  both  art  and  entertainment  in  them. 

Here,  in  short,  for  amateurs  of  art  and  of 
entertainment,  was  a  distinctly  new  sensation. 
Aside  from  the  entertainment,  sheerly  as  such, 
what  was  genuinely  artistic  in  the  cabaret  had 
come  down  from  the  Uberbrettl'. 


n 

THE  UBERBRETTL'  MOVEMENT 

THE  Uberbrettl'  was  a  movement  for  the  im- 
provement of  the  rubbish  in  vogue  in  the  music- 
halls  and  lighter  theatres  of  Germany  just  be- 
fore the  beginning  of  the  present  century.  This 
doggerel,  this  utter  nonsense,  this  illiterate  and 
unintelligent  vaporing,  certain  rash  young 
poets  of  Green  Germany,  Otto  Julius  Bier- 
baum  at  their  head,  determined  to  scotch. 
They  meant  to  replace  all  that  by  real  lyrics, 
set  to  real  melodies. 

Those  young  Germans  of  the  later  nineties 
started  their  Uberbrettl' ;  they  wrote  their 
most  jaunty  verses  for  it,  and  the  most  dexter- 
ous of  their  musical  fellows  wrote  music  to  the 
verses ;  and  all  this  got  itself  sung,  not  only 
on  the  little  stages  they  controlled,  but  on  the 
streets  of  the  whole  country.  What  was  all  this 
if  it  was  not  the  Minnesingers  come  again,  the 
troubadours  flaunting  their  romantic  airs  in  the 
very  halls  of  the  philistine?  Once  the  philistine 
had  been  baronial ;  now  he  was  bourgeois  —  or 
as  Germany  had  it  then,  "  Biedermeier  " ;  and 
10 


THE  UBERBRETTL'  MOVEMENT      11 

the  baron  of  earlier  days  had  been,  of  the  whole 
crew,  the  more  tolerant  of  good  verse  and  good 
melody.  But,  if  the  Uberbrettl'  was  to  have 
a  hard  fight,  and  win  indirect  rather  than  di- 
rect triumphs,  we  can  never  sufficiently  ap- 
plaud the  courage  of  its  leaders. 

By  the  year  1900  they  had  reached  the  point 
where  they  could  print  a  goodly  little  volume 
of  the  lyrics  that  were  singing  themselves  all 
over  the  land,  namely :  "  Deutsche  Chansons," 
or  "  Brettl-lieder,"  as  the  sub-title  went.  In 
twelve  months  this  had  sold  20,000  copies.  It 
was  in  the  preface  to  the  original  edition  of  this 
little  collection  that  Bierbaum  definitely  ex- 
pressed the  real  hope  of  the  Uberbrettl'  move- 
ment ;  the  date  was  September,  1900.  Here  is 
the  gist  of  the  little  proclamation : 

"  Art  for  the  music-hall  —  is  that  not,  you 
say,  something  of  a  profanation?  Lyrics  and 
the  show  business,  can  those  be  associates?  .  .  . 
Well,  we  are  going  to  try,  seriously  enough,  to 
put  art  at  the  service  of  the  music-hall.  We 
happen  to  have  the  notion  that  all  life  can  be 
made  artistic.  Artists,  to-day,  build  chairs 
that  are  not  only  beautiful  to  behold,  but  com- 
fortable to  sit  on.  Even  so  we  want  to  write 
verses  that  will  be  not  only  for  the  library  but 
that  an  amusement-loving  people  will  sing.  Ap- 
plied lyrics  —  there  is  our  text.  .  .  .  Firstly 


12  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

they  must  be  songs  you  can  sing.  Nextly,  they 
must  delight  not  merely  a  cultivated  minority, 
but  the  average  general  public  that  simply 
wants  to  be  entertained.  .  .  .  Just  as  the  In- 
dependent Theatres  succeeded  in  raising  the 
wants  of  the  playgoing  public,  so  we  hope,  by 
introducing  art  into  the  variety-theatres,  to 
better  the  general  taste.  .  .  .  Variety-theatres 
are  as  much  typical  expressions  of  our  time  and 
culture  as  electric  street-cars.  The  townsman 
of  to-day  has,  if  you  will  permit  the  phrase, 
music-hall  nerves ;  only  rarely  he  troubles  to 
follow  great  dramatic  coherencies ;  he  wants 
change  —  variety.  If,  as  artists,  we  wish  to 
keep  in  touch  with  life  itself,  we  must  count  on 
this  realization.  .  .  . 

"  This  idea  originally  came,  I  believe,  from 
my  friend  Stilpe.  .  .  .  Now  we  are  to  lift  it 
from  fancy  into  fact,  and  no  less  than  friend 
Wolzogen  is  to  see  to  that.  I  count  this  as  no 
less  worthy  than  the  founding,  in  their  day,  of 
the  Independent  Theatres.  .  .  ." 

Here  a  necessary,  if  lame,  attempt  to  explain 
the  title  Uberbrettl'.  The  final  "  1 "  is,  as  you 
may  know,  the  endearing  diminutive  hailing 
from  Vienna.  Where  the  northern  German 
speaks  of  "  Madchen "  the  southern  says 
Madl'."  "  Die  Bretter  "  are  in  German  exactly 
what  in  our  own  stage  parlance  "  the  boards  " 


THE  UBERBRETTL'  MOVEMENT      13 

are ;  but  for  the  "  Brettl'  "  we  have  no  equiva- 
lent ;  the  term  covers  all  lighter  forms  of  enter- 
tainment below  the  "  legitimate."  Music-hall, 
variety,  cafe-chantant,  and  even  that  mongrel 
product  known  as  musical  comedy,  would  fall 
under  the  title  of  Brettl'.  Uber,  of  course,  as 
all  acquainted  with  the  names  of  Nietzsche,  of 
Richard  Strauss,  of  Bernard  Shaw,  etc.,  know, 
means  Super.  So  from  all  this  you  may  build 
a  version  to  suit  yourself.  An  ingenious 
American  promoter  of  music-halls  once  coined 
the  term  Polite  Variety;  this  German  article 
might  be  called  Artistic  Variety.  But  the  saf- 
est thing,  when  once  you  know  what  is  meant, 
is  to  call  it  simply  the  Uberbrettl'.  As  that  it 
made  history  in  Germany ;  and  under  that 
banner  its  legacies  of  song  and  music  have  come 
down  to  us. 

The  Uberbrettl'  idea  flourished  into  fact  in 
many  German  towns.  There  were,  to  name  only 
a  few,  the  Darmstaedter  Spiele  as  offshoots ; 
and  in  Munich  the  "  Elf  Sharf  richter  "  gave 
performances  of  amazing  and  memorable  dis- 
tinction. Only  in  Berlin  the  climate  was  too 
inartistic ;  the  Trianon  Theatre  went  to  pieces 
with  a  completeness  that  prompted  Bierbaum  to 
a  most  delightful  sort  of  Farewell,  in  which  oc- 
curred the :  "  This  once,  and  never  again !  " 
One  of  my  most  cherished  treasures  is  the  issue 
of  Die  Insel  in  which  that  Farewell  ap- 


14  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

peared.  Later  Bierbaum  commented  on  the 
episode  less  ironically,  and  in  a  way  that  will 
help  you  to  understand  still  more  clearly  the 
Uberbrettl'  scheme.  The  passage  occurs  in 
"  A  Little  Autumn  Motor-tour,"  which  now 
appears  in  the  1910  edition  of  the  "  Yankee- 
doodletrip." 

"  In  Berlin  the  Uberbrettl'  began  as  a  joke, 
and  went  to  pieces  when  the  joke  grew  stale. 
Every  effort  seriously  to  realize  the  truly  fine 
idea  of  a  lyric  theatre  in  music-hall  form,  was 
bound  to  fail  there,  because  the  notion  of  a  lit- 
erary hoax  was  too  closely  allied  to  it.  In  Mu- 
nich the  idea  succeeded,  because  there  the  artis- 
tic definitely  prevailed  over  the  joke  of  the 
thing;  because  a  really  businesslike  manage- 
ment was  at  the  head;  and  because,  more  than 
any  town  in  Germany,  Munich  enjoys  a  wise 
and  liberal  censorship.  The  things  Frank 
Wedekind  can  sing  here  "  (Bierbaum  was  wri- 
ting in  Munich,  in  November,  1902),  "  would  be 
possible  in  no  other  German  town.  More  than 
that :  Even  if  they  were  allowed,  it  would  be  im- 
possible, because  of  the  attitude  of  the  audiences, 
to  consider  them  as  anything  but  insults.  .  .  . 
The  chief  advantage  the  *  Elf  Scharfrichter  ' 
have  is  that  the  space  in  which  they  play  ex- 
cludes a  mob ;  it  is  a  room  that  is  hardly  more 
than  a  corridor,  and  holds  hardly  more  than 
a  hundred  people.  Which  preserves  just  the 


THE  UBERBEETTL'  MOVEMENT      15 

intimacy  necessary  to  this  sort  of  art.  Also  the 
pleasant  lack  of  pretentiousness.  Everything 
primitive,  but  in  the  best  taste.  Hardly  any- 
thing that  smacks  of  being  an  '  artistic  '  turn, 
yet  hardly  anything  quite  lacking  in  art.  .  .  . 
They  played,  for  instance,  a  satiric  farce  of 
Paul  Schlesinger's,  '  The  Improvement  Society,' 
full  of  the  most  obvious  hits  at  the  highest  per- 
sonage of  the  German  Empire,  surpassing  any- 
thing the  Simplicissimus  ever  dared.  .  .  ." 

BIERBAUM'S  mention  of  Simplicissimus  brings 
one  to  emphasis  of  the  fact  that  it  was  not  in 
literature  alone  that  Germany  in  that  period 
was  surprising  the  rest  of  the  world.  In  art, 
too,  the  younger  men  were  effecting  a  revolu- 
tion that  was  no  less  tremendous.  There  is  not 
room  here  to  go  into  that  side  of  the  movement ; 
but  it  is  nothing  less  than  pertinent  to  point 
out  that  what  the  men  this  book  is  to  emphasize 
were  achieving  for  an  awakening  of  truly  Ger- 
man vigor,  for  individualism,  and  above  all  for 
irony  in  writing,  their  compeers  in  caricature 
and  in  every  printed  form  of  art  were  equaling. 
Simplicissimus  became  the  foremost  organ  of 
political  and  social  satire  in  the  world,  and 
Jugend  the  most  artistic.  The  legend  of  a 
Germany  ruled  by  uniforms,  military  or  bureau- 
cratic, became  hard  to  discern  under  a  play  of 
wit  and  criticism  in  print  that  no  other  land  in 


16  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

the  world  surpassed.  Than  T.  T.  Heine  it 
would  be  hard  to  find  a  more  mordant  artist 
with  the  pencil,  and  in  no  other  artist  since 
Diirer  has  the  hard  morality  of  the  North  found 
a  sterner  satirist. 

If  in  that  artist  you  have  the  Teuton  brutal- 
ity and  directness,  in  the  late  Von  Recnicek  you 
had  a  grace  and  charm  in  the  depiction  of  the 
feminine  and  fashionable  side  of  life  that  made 
the  outlander  suppose  Germany  populated,  all 
of  a  sudden,  with  beautiful  women  with  Paris- 
ian taste  in  gowns.  That  was,  it  is  true,  merely 
his  Hungarian  instinct  for  the  beautiful  im- 
posing itself  upon  Munich;  yet  it  marked  a 
new  stage  in  German  artistic  development  none 
the  less.  Germany  had  left  parochialism  and 
taken  to  cosmopolitan  laughter.  What  Von 
Recnicek  did  for  frocks  and  frills,  Thony  did 
for  the  uniforms ;  the  one  satirized  the  men,  the 
other  the  women,  of  fashion ;  for  in  Germany 
or  Austria  the  man  of  fashion  still  does  not 
exist  outside  of  uniform.  But  if  you  imagine 
the  backfisch  adoration  of  the  officer  type  still 
in  vogue  in  this  period  that  the  writing  and 
painting  men  of  Germany  were  introducing,  you 
have  only  to  look  at  files  of  Simplicissimus  or 
Jugend  to  have  your  fancy  exploded. 

The  men  of  Jugend  are  by  now  great  paint- 
ers, accepted  by  the  world;  one  need  do  no 
more  here  than  name  some  of  them  briefly.  The 


THE  UBERBRETTL'  MOVEMENT      17 

fantastic  Julius  Diez;  R.  M.  Eichler;  Feld- 
bauer  and  Jank,  whose  horses  and  soldiers  are 
in  the  foreground  of  so  many  of  the  Munich 
exhibitions;  Paul  Rieth  and  Adolf  Miinzer 
(whose  mural  paintings  make  artistically  re- 
markable the  new  Kur-Haus  in  Wiesbaden)  giv- 
ing vividly  that  Gallic  note  which  has  for  years 
been  passing  out  through  Munich ;  and  the  late 
Leo  Putz  with  his  strange  tricks  of  satire  and 
decoration.  The  application  of  all  this  art  left 
nothing  to  be  desired,  for  in  step  with  all  such 
energetic  breaking  away  from  old  and  stilted 
caricature  and  illustration  the  processes  of 
color-printing  in  Germany  reached  what 
is  to-day  admittedly  the  first  place  in  the 
world. 

It  were  easy  to  write  about  what  we  may  call 
the  colored  side  of  this  Young  German  period 
an  entire  book;  and  since  I  was  of  those  rash 
mortals  who  in  the  days  when  all  this  color,  all 
this  satire  and  singing,  were  new,  loved  it  all, 
whether  it  was  green,  or  yellow,  or  blue,  and 
tried  to  make  others  love  it,  I  should  like  noth- 
ing better ;  but  to-day  all  that  may  be  done 
is  to  tell  you  that  part  of  the  history  I  am  re- 
cording for  you  is  the  history  of  Jugend  and 
of  Simplicissimus.  It  was  in  the  latter  paper 
that  some  of  the  Bierbaum  ballads  were  first 
given  to  the  world.  And  it  was  in  those  pages, 
too,  that  there  appeared,  eventually,  the  most 


18  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

pungent  and  valuable  caricature  on  the  Uber- 
brettl'. 

The  picture  was  by  T.  T.  Heine,  and  showed 
the  two  leaders  in  the  Uberbrettl'  movement, 
Von  Wolzogen  and  Bierbaum,  applauding 
Schiller  in  the  act  of  emulating  their  own  activi- 
ties. "  You  see,  my  dear  Schiller,"  they  are 
saying  to  him,  "  it's  just  as  I  told  you:  your 
Song  of  the  Bell  will  never  get  right  down  to 
the  heart  of  the  people  until  you  sing  it  your- 
self while  balancing  a  lighted  lamp."  And  so 
the  picture  shows  him,  strumming  his  accom- 
paniment on  a  guitar ;  the  other  two  are  watch- 
ing, Wolzogen's  length  seated,  Bierbaum's 
slight  stature  standing,  both  applauding  Herr 
von  Schiller's  little  act. 

DESPITE  much  ridicule  and  caricature,  and 
despite  the  fact  that  the  Uberbrettl'  itself,  as 
an  actual  variation  upon  the  music-hall,  ap- 
peared to  perish,  many  things  triumphed  and 
survived  from  out  this  delightful  plot.  The  en- 
tire present  school  of  Viennese  and  Munich  and 
Berlin  operetta  may  be  traced  back  to  it ;  there 
remain  to  us  many  poems,  much  charming 
music,  and  even  plays.  Melodies  by  Oscar 
Straus,  Victor  Hollaender,  Paul  Lincke,  Bo- 
gumil  Zepler,  James  Rothstein  and  others,  are 
still  with  us,  relics  of  that  campaign.  It  was 
the  bit  of  popularity  that  came  to  his  ballads 


THE  UBERBRETTL'  MOVEMENT      19 

of  love  and  war  when  they  were  sung  to  haunt- 
ing tunes  from  these  Uberbrettl'  boards  which 
first  set  that  fine  poet,  Detlev  von  Liliencron, 
upon  his  feet.  There  remain,  purchasable  to- 
day, the  Liliencron  collection,  the  Wolzogen  col- 
lection, and  others,  definite  series  in  the  musical 
editions  of  that  day.  There  are  no  better 
chamber-songs  than  those  to-day,  in  any  tongue. 

So,  though  this  liaison  between  literature 
and  the  stage  did  not  last,  it  made  history,  and 
left  valuable  legacies.  In  imperishable  print 
and  score  we  still  retain  some  charming  lyrics 
set  to  haunting  music.  Gems  by  Heine  himself 
were  used  in  this  young  romantic  movement 
that  he  might  himself  have  delighted  in ;  trifles 
too  by  that  versatile  Parisian,  Catulle  Mendes, 
were  adopted.  In  all  this  you  could  find  trace 
of  the  great  change  that  was  moving  over  all 
Continental  art. 

The  incident  of  the  Uberbrettl',  from  the 
view  of  mere  entertainment,  is  surely  not  with- 
out its  lesson  for  English  and  American  emu- 
lation. Surely  we  have  plenty  of  talent ;  surely 
the  artistic  taste  of  our  people,  toward  miming 
and  toward  minstrelsy,  chief  factors  in  the 
Uberbrettl',  has  been  left  long  enough  to  the 
influence  of  the  money-changers.  Could  not,  as 
in  the  German  cabaret  of  the  better  sort,  a  little 
art  be  wedded  to  a  little  commerce,  so  that 
neither  the  public's  taste  nor  its  intelligence  be 


20  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

insulted?  In  England  something  of  the  Uber- 
brettl'  idea  has,  consciously  or  otherwise,  been 
developed  by  Pelissier.  In  America  few  efforts 
in  this  direction  have  been  made,  save  such  as 
smacked  of  fashionable  pastime  for  fashionables. 
The  Uberbrettl'  aimed  at  no  pink  tea  elements, 
no  mere  fashionable  cliques.  It  was  greater 
than  mere  cliques.  Though  dead,  it  lives ;  a 
vital  chapter  in  the  history  of  young  Germany. 
Alive,  too,  supremely  alive,  are  those  delight- 
ful songs.  Few  enough  are  the  corners  on  either 
the  English  or  the  American  side  of  the  Atlan- 
tic where  those  melodious  songs  occasionally  fall 
on  the  ear;  yet,  if  you  are  minded  to  tilt  at 
windmills,  —  to  start  an  Uberbrettl'  in  New 
York  or  London,  —  the  way  is  easy  and  not  far. 
Just  study,  first,  those  songs,  that  any  German 
music-shop  will  sell  you ;  those  songs  that  Bier- 
baum  and  the  others  wrote,  that  Oscar  Straus 
and  the  others  made  tunes  for.  You  do  not 
even  have  to  understand  the  words.  There  is  at 
least  one  genius  of  the  tone  world  who  plays 
those  UberbrettP  songs  as  if  she  really  under- 
stood them ;  she  knows  no  word  of  German ;  the 
language  of  lyric  and  of  melody  are  all  she 
needs. 


in 

ON    COLLECTING    AND    ON    MINSTRELSY 

IF  THE  cabaret  and  the  Uberbrettl'  furnished 
the  proper  amateur  of  sensation  with  many  new 
delights,  you  are  not  to  run  away  with  the  idea 
that  these  new  sensations  extended  no  farther 
than  the  province  of  entertainment.  What  the 
Uberbrettl'  opened  was  nothing  less  than  the 
door  to  the  proper  understanding  of  all  that  is 
to-day  most  vital  in  current  German  literature. 

All  these  sensations,  of  those  early  years  and 
the  many  since,  came  to  me  through  my  first 
copy  of  Otto  Julius  Bierbaum's  magazine  The 
Island. 

We  are  all  of  us,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, collectors.  Too  many  of  us  collect 
mere  money;  others  devote  their  most  vivid 
moments  to  the  collection  of  pictures,  of  books, 
or  of  meerschaums.  The  wisest  of  all  collectors 
are  those,  I  think,  who  concern  themselves  sim- 
ply with  garnering  emotion.  They  are  able  to 
dispense  with  any  such  crude  capital  as  mere 
coin;  their  chief  requisite  need  be  no  more 
than  a  nose  for  the  nai've.  The  exact  opposite 
of  this  happiest  type  of  collector  is  the  incur- 
21 


22  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

able  sufferer  from  ennui,  who  has  no  longer  any 
ability  to  discover  in  himself  or  elsewhere  any 
emotion  whatever. 

All  this,  by  way  of  apology  for  certain 
doubtless  unfashionable  habits  of  my  own.  In 
an  age  of  machinery  I  still  go  about  the  world 
collecting  sensations  that  have  nothing  what- 
ever to  do  with  machinery.  If  Herr  Baedeker, 
or  another,  dares  to  sketch  a  sensation  for  me 
in  advance,  the  bloom  is  off ;  the  music  of  bell- 
wethers is  a  noise  I  avoid.  Nor  is  such  selfish 
search  for  uncharted  emotions  without  its  re- 
wards. Had  I  not  gone,  for  example,  potter- 
ing about  some  dingy  lanes  in  Hamburg,  one 
day  when  the  nineteenth  century  was  gasping 
out  its  last  months,  I  might  never  have  found 
the  key  to  a  most  illuminating  realization. 
What  began,  that  day,  as  a  momentarily  vivid 
sensation,  has  broadened  out,  as  the  years 
passed  until  now  that  one  keen  moment  is  be- 
come an  appreciation  of  an  entire  period  of  his- 
tory. The  arts  have  as  much  to  do  with  the 
history  of  peoples  as  have  politics. 

Pottering,  as  I  said,  about  the  streets  of 
Hamburg,  I  found,  in  what  the  Germans  charm- 
ingly call  an  "  antiquarian  "  bookshop,  a  set  of 
unbound  volumes  of  a  periodical  called  The 
Island  (Die  Insel).  Turning  the  pages  of 
these  loose  copies,  as  they  lay  casually  scattered 
about  the  tables,  I  felt  the  dawn  of  a  sensation. 


COLLECTING  AND  MINSTRELSY      23 

The  German  literature  on  which  I  had  fed  in 
my  youth  had  been  nothing  like  this ;  I  recalled 
only  a  more  or  less  mummified  atmosphere  in 
which  the  works  of  Freytag,  Dahn  and  Ebers 
mingled.  Which  had  been  as  fresh,  as  racial, 
as,  say,  the  Lew  Wallace  chariot-races.  I  had 
a  sudden  absurd  vision,  as  I  stood  there  awak- 
ing to  a  realization  of  an  actual  German  litera- 
ture, of  General  Wallace's  Ben  Hur  and  Georg 
Ebers's  Daughter  of  a  King  in  Egypt  march- 
ing pompously  to  the  gates  of  posterity's  Par- 
nassus —  and  having  the  gate  shut  in  their 
faces !  I  turned  the  pages  ;  I  let  the  welter  of 
new  names,  new  notes  in  prose,  in  lyric  and  in 
play,  surge  all  about  me ;  at  first  I  caught  only 
the  general  glamour  that  shines  from  youth, 
from  courage,  from  revival  of  old  hopes,  rais- 
ings of  new  banners;  gradually  there  emerged 
essential  necessities:  I  must  carry  off  with  me 
as  many  of  these  volumes  as  possible,  I  must 
begin  at  the  beginning  and  find  out  what  it  was 
all  about,  this  brave  stuff  of  songs  and  stories 
in  Otto  Julius  Bierbaum's  Island. 

To  Otto  Julius  Bierbaum  I  owe  my  first  en- 
thusiasms, and  much  of  my  later  knowledge  of 
that  transition  period  in  modern  German  litera- 
ture which  the  future  will,  I  maintain,  come  to 
regard  as  the  beginning  of  a  New  Age.  It  is 
in  a  sort  of  gratitude  to  Otto  Julius  that  I  shall 
try  to  hand  abroad  the  message  which  unwit- 


24  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

tingly  he  began  for  me  in  that  shop  in  Ham- 
burg. The  mortal  part  of  him  can  carry  no 
more  messages  in  story,  song,  or  play ;  he  died 
the  second  of  February,  1910.  But  the  ever- 
lasting child  in  him,  the  unquenchable  minstrel, 
will  go  singing  on,  lifting  us  always  nearer  to 
the  sky.  He,  and  the  group  in  which  he  be- 
longed, were  proper  troubadours  of  to-day. 

The  history  of  those  Teuton  minstrels  has 
keen  pertinence  in  England  and  America.  Can 
we  not  snatch,  from  our  motors,  our  machines, 
and  our  marts,  the  brief  hours  that  it  will  take 
to  listen  to  these  troubadours,  and  to  see  how 
sharply  their  singing  and  living  have  value  for 
our  own  time,  our  own  peoples,  and  the  peoples 
to  follow  us? 

Not  this  nor  many  books  can  ever  tell  you  all 
the  new  worlds  that  opened  up  to  me  as  I  read 
my  way  through  the  pages  Otto  Julius  first 
revealed  to  me.  Songs,  stories,  men  and  women, 
music,  plays,  and  pictures  passed  before  me  so 
vividly  that  I  felt  I  must  come  to  closer  quar- 
ters with  them.  And  some  of  these  enthusiasms, 
which  the  years  have  but  intensified,  I  hope  to 
pass  on  to  you.  Have  but  a  little  patience  with 
these  pages,  step  but  ever  so  quickly  through 
anterooms  somewhat  crowded,  like  doctors' 
waiting-rooms,  with  decayed  literature,  and  you 
may  be  rewarded  by  a  valuable  morsel  or  so. 

The  valuable,  you  say,  may  also  be  entertain- 


COLLECTING  AND  MINSTRELSY      25 

ing?  Good,  you  are  the  one  I  like.  Deliver  me 
from  these  groaning  and  grunting  rooters  after 
culture!  The  only  reason  I  like  to  remember 
that  little  anecdote  about  the  Gadarene  swine  is 
that  I  conceive  the  "  steep  place  "  as  being  a 
synonym  for  "  culture." 

WHAT  the  group  of  Germans  hereinafter  to 
be  considered  represented  was  nothing  less  than 
a  rebirth,  in  this  most  mechanic  age  of  ours,  of 
the  spirit  of  the  wandering  minstrels  of  the 
middle  ages.  We  need  not  go  scholastically 
into  the  history  of  those  wanderers,  whether 
troubadours  of  Provence  or  students  of  Ger- 
many. But  this  much  is  pertinent:  the  identi- 
cal bold,  vivid,  natural,  pagan  outlook  on  life 
that  marked  those  wandering  students  of  the 
middle  ages,  marked  also  the  singing  of  these 
Germans  of  the  day  before  yesterday,  notably 
these  three:  Detlev  von  Liliencron,  Otto  Erich 
Hartleben  and  Otto  Julius  Bierbaum.  Their 
singing  was  the  spontaneous  expression  of 
youth,  of  the  individual.  There  was  no  ques- 
tion of  problem,  of  morals ;  nature  and  the  ego 
were  voiced  as  blithely  as  the  lark  sings. 

You  may  draw  instructive  parallels  easily 
enough  between  that  singing  of  the  medieval 
troubadours  and  this  newer  singing.  The  in- 
tellectual torpor  in  Germany  that  preceded  this 
lyric  awakening  was  exactly  that  of  the  middle 


26  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

ages.  Society,  after  the  triumph  of  'Seventy, 
was  hypnotized  by  its  own  complacent  ortho- 
doxy; sheer  physical  prosperity  threatened  to 
choke  the  inward  spirit.  Puffed  up  with  its  vic- 
tories in  the  field  of  battles,  Germany  held  song 
and  story  to  be  no  stuff  for  robust  masculinity, 
just  as  America  to-day,  drunken  with  a  dream 
of  financial  supremacy,  conceives  the  arts  as 
mere  pawns  in  the  market-place.  Teuton  or 
English  or  American  —  and  there  are  those 
who  conceive  the  world's  future  as  sure  to  be 
branded  with  one  of  those  titles !  —  we  all  need 
divorce  from  the  material,  as  much  as  ever 
Luther  longed  for  divorce  from  Rome.  If  we 
do  not  wish  to  choke  on  dust  of  steel  and  con- 
crete, we  must  make  way  for  a  lyric  or  so  in  our 
lives.  We  need  minstrels,  not  mechanics.  The 
latter,  like  weeds,  will  always  flourish.  But 
minstrels  —  we  pretend  their  day  is  done,  for- 
getting that  some  of  their  songs  will  live  when 
all  our  towers  of  stone  and  steel  are  in  the  like- 
ness of  what  once  was  Baalbek.  For  there  is  no 
more  wonderful  mystery  in  the  world  than  the 
handing  down  from  generation  to  generation, 
from  folk  to  folk,  of  songs,  of  ballads,  often 
even  without  aid  of  writing.  The  singers  die; 
the  streets  and  towns  that  knew  them  may  be 
leveled  to  the  dust;  only  the  song  survives. 

In  Germany,  more  than  anywhere  else  in  the 
world,  the  habit  of  wandering  abroad  in  the 


COLLECTING  AND  MINSTRELSY     27 

world,  afoot,  in  student-days,  continues.  On 
any  roadside  to-day  you  will  meet  these  young 
fellows;  along  the  Rhineborders,  in  the  Harz, 
in  Thiiringen,  Saxon  Switzerland,  Switzerland, 
and  even  Italy.  The  term  "  wander-years  "  is 
a  commonplace  in  print  and  colloquial  usage; 
the  fact  of  a  period  in  a  young  man's  life  being 
devoted  to  faring  forth  to  see  the  world  with 
hardly  any  capital  save  health  and  a  stout  pair 
of  legs  is  as  taken  for  granted  as  that  if  you 
are  able-bodied  and  have  not  passed  the  exami- 
nation for  one-year  volunteers,  you  must  serve 
your  three  years  in  the  army.  A  knapsack 
holds  all  the  essentials,  which  are  likely  to  con- 
tain more  books  than  soap ;  our  German  lad  is 
not  bothered  by  neurotic  notions  about  sanita- 
tion and  open  plumbing ;  the  world  is  his  oyster, 
to  be  opened  at  the  mere  kick  of  his  booted  toe. 
So  he  goes,  year  after  year,  generation  after 
generation,  upon  his  wander-years.  To  "  make 
one's  Italian  tour  "  is  the  dream  not  only  of 
youth,  of  art,  but  of  the  solid  citizen,  not  to  say 
the  philistine.  German  or  English  or  American, 
you  can  be  most  execrably  puritan  or  philistine, 
or  both,  though  you  race  up  and  down  Italy 
every  year  of  your  lives.  The  proper  wander- 
ing students,  however,  were  never  the  ones  to 
enter  Venice  and  sniff  at  "  the  drains  " ;  nor  did 
they  sit  complacently  in  Florence  and  regret 
that  there  was  only  one  vast  square  where  you 


28  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

could  drink  Munich  beer.  They  had  no  money 
in  their  purses,  no  cares ;  they  worshiped  the 
trinity  of  wine,  woman  and  song,  and  the  world 
must  help  them  to  enjoy  that  trinity. 

In  Paris  (wrote  a  fine  old  medieval  monk) 
they  seek  liberal  arts,  in  Orleans  authors,  and 
in  no  place  decent  manners.  To-day,  where  we 
are  material  rather  than  monkish,  we  still  can- 
not give  the  German  wanderer  much  praise  for 
his  manners;  as  to  the  rest,  he  is  more  like  to 
seek  wine  in  Italy,  women  in  Paris,  and  come 
home  with  his  songs.  That  Italian  wine  is 
more  than  grape;  it  is  the  rare  wine  of  art, 
without  which  few  German  poets  have  come  into 
their  own.  Hardly  a  great  German  but  passed 
through  his  Italian  period.  No  Byron  or  Lan- 
dor  or  Shelley  loved  Italy  more  than  Goethe. 

The  troubadours  of  old  imparted  to  posterity 
no  great  lessons,  solved  no  great  problems. 
They  did  not  preach.  They  sang  of  themselves, 
their  loves,  and  their  lives,  naturally  and  heart- 
ily, and  in  so  doing,  gave  us  sketches  of  their 
type  and  their  time  more  vivid  than  if  they  had 
gone  to  finicky  painstaking  detail.  Exactly  so, 
you  are  presently  to  see,  have  these  latterday 
protagonists  of  the  lyric  served  their  country 
and  their  age.  As  they  have  been  natural,  spon- 
taneous, have  cut  themselves  away  from  quib- 
bles about  styles  and  formulas  —  turned  their 
backs  on  phrases  like  naturalism,  impressionism, 


COLLECTING  AND  MINSTRELSY     29 

and  the  like — they  have  succeeded,  as  not  before 
in  many,  many  years,  in  voicing  the  real  Ger- 
many of  their  time.  They  were  German  poets, 
not  poets  who  happened  to  write  in  German. 

Besides  Von  Liliencron,  Hartleben  and  Bier- 
baum,  the  most  notable  of  these  truly  German 
poets,  I  shall  tell  you  of  other,  still  younger 
men,  but  the  essence  of  the  lyric  spirit  may  be 
found  in  those  three. 

It  is  through  those  three,  also,  that  you  can 
reach,  over  an  awful  gulf  of  futility  and  form- 
alism, to  the  giant,  Goethe,  with  whom  died, 
in  1832,  as  you  may  read  in  all  the  solemn  doc- 
uments, German  literature.  Not  since  Goethe 
and  Heine  had  the  natural  and  naive  sponta- 
neity of  true  lyricism  come  to  expression  as  in 
Liliencron ;  and  if  you  would  enroll  yourself  as 
a  proper  Goethe-worshiper  any  time  in 
these  last  fifteen  years,  you  must  have  had  upon 
your  shelves  the  Goethe  Brevier  of  Otto  Erich 
Hartleben  and  the  annual  Goethe  Calendars  of 
Otto  Julius  Bierbaum.  I  do  not  compare  any 
of  these  three  with  the  giant  who  dominated 
German  literature  a  hundred  years  ago ;  but  I 
say  that  much  of  his  raciness  of  soil,  his  natu- 
ralness in  song,  lay  dead  and  buried  until  these 
men  revived  it. 

SUPPOSE,  before  we  go  farther,  that  we  have 
it  out  a  little  upon  the  lyric  note  in  life.  There 


30  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

are  plenty  of  you,  I  know  well  enough,  who  are 
beginning  to  tremble  lest  this  become  a  book 
about  poetry.  Now,  poetry  as  a  certain  set  of 
scholiasts  determine  it,  cannot  possibly  interest 
you  less  than  it  does  me.  "  That  day  they  read 
no  more  "  is  a  line  I  can  misquote  from  Dante 
with  any  disciple  of  Chautauqua ;  however  little 
they  read  of  the  noble  Italian  or  of  many  of  his 
stamp,  it  is  more  than  I  have  the  mind  for.  I 
was  overdosed  with  "  rosy-fingered  morns  "  in 
college,  and  the  Homeric  has  meant  laughter 
to  me  in  all  my  more  sophisticated  days.  The 
narrative,  cut  up  into  lines  of  equal  length,  and 
arbitrarily  begun  with  capital  letters,  does  not 
fill  me  with  emotion.  The  only  minstrel  who,  in 
this  age  of  print  and  stereotype,  has  still  logical 
license  to  sing  his  story  from  generation  to 
generation,  is  he  who  does  it  briefly,  musi- 
cally, spontaneously.  Who  writes,  in  short,  the 
lyric. 

What  matters,  in  poetry,  as  in  all  letters,  is 
the  genuineness  of  the  emotion  that  is  reached; 
rules  matter  nothing  at  all;  if  the  song  sings 
itself  into  your  heart,  it  is  poetry.  If  it  does 
not  do  that,  they  can  tell  you  until  they  are 
green  with  despair  that  the  lines  have  conformed 
to  all  the  rules  of  poetry.  Poetry  for  poets  is 
a  circle  as  futile  as  literature  for  literates.  The 
solemn  dullards  who  maintain  the  Olympian  at- 
titude, who  prate  of  the  academic,  of  standards, 


COLLECTING  AND  MINSTRELSY      31 

and  values,  of  Isms  and  Ologies,  of  the  princi- 
ples of  criticism,  what  blind  leaders  of  the  blind 
they  are!  All  such  shop-talk  never  extends  the 
human  interest  in  literature  one  iota,  one  milli- 
metre. Can  you  see  the  man  in  the  street,  the 
girl  at  the  typewriter,  the  unpolished  human 
being  in  whom  taste  dwells  unknown,  being 
stirred  to  sudden  interest  in  literature,  prose  or 
lyric,  by  the  "  literary  "  phrases  of  such  bab- 
bling Brahmins? 

No;  this  lesson  in  the  humanities  cannot  be 
learned  soon  enough:  our  age  needs  the  lyric, 
and  not  alone  in  poetry.  The  lyric  spirit,  and 
this  is  what  I  want  to  declare  to  you  before  you 
tire  too  thoroughly  of  all  this  matter,  can  be  as 
vivid  in  a  welltold  story,  a  wellmade  play,  a 
beautifully  voiced  saying,  as  in  a  lyric  song  it- 
self. You  can  be  lyric  merely  in  your  unspoilt 
youth;  your  unflecked  beauty  can  be  a  lyric; 
there  can  be  the  proper  lyric  note  in  a  rose  and 
golden  sunset;  or  in  a  landscape  flecked  with 
autumn  voices.  Our  age  is  of  machinery ;  steel, 
concrete  and  electricity  loom  and  whirl  about 
us ;  more  and  more  it  takes  an  effort  to  find  the 
lyric  note.  Yet,  if  we  would  not  let  our  human- 
ity crumble  utterly  into  dull  rust  under  all  this 
machinery,  it  is  just  the  lyric  note  we  must  con- 
serve, must  foster.  Youthfulness,  heartiness, 
proneness  to  emotion,  all  these  mean  nothing  but 
the  lyric  spirit. 


32  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

The  true  lyric  is  concerned  with  primitive 
emotions.  To  be  lyric  is  to  be  as  a  child.  It 
is  to  be  simple,  naive.  Simplicity  need  not  mean 
inability  to  discriminate.  Simplicity  is  another 
name  for  instinct  that  has  not  been  spoiled. 
This  makes  fewer  mistakes  than  carefully  rea- 
soned criticism.  My  friend  Bierbaum  saliently 
remarked  once  that  if  the  professional  critics 
had  had  the  handing  down  to  us  of  the  popular 
folk-songs  of  earlier  ages,  we  would  have  re- 
tained no  such  beautiful  fragments  as  are  the 
result  of  the  people  themselves  having  trans- 
mitted them.  Simplicity,  he  remarked,  is  possi- 
ble in  the  most  sophisticated ;  there  is  no  greater 
sophistication  than  that  of  a  Frenchman,  yet 
towards  art  the  French  can  bring  the  most  naive 
of  attitudes. 

Our  souls  may  be  all-too-tired  in  tune  with 
our  age  of  ennui,  and  yet  in  contemplation  of 
the  beautiful  we  can  be  as  children  that  never 
question  the  wherefore  of  their  joy.  If  sophis- 
tication and  ennui  could  conspire  to  kill  the 
child  in  us,  there  would,  of  course,  be  an  end 
to  all  things  lyric.  We  have  not  yet,  fortu- 
nately, reached  that  awful  point.  And  it  is  the 
part  of  lyric  art  to  keep  us  from  ever  reaching 
it. 

The  lyric,  when  true  to  itself,  is  not  objective. 
The  life  of  the  lyric  is  feeling.  Where  there  is 
no  heart,  no  feeling,  be  the  rhythm  as  perfect  as 


COLLECTING  AND  MINSTRELSY      33 

can  be,  there  is  no  lyric.  Feeling  is  not  always 
the  same,  in  all  ages ;  to  that  extent  the  lyric 
is  flexible  in  its  fashions.  The  question  whether 
our  time  has  developed  an  actual  lyric  style  is 
still  open ;  the  greater  question  is  that  the  lyric 
be  preserved  at  all.  Goethe,  we  know,  left  as 
legacy  a  certain  lyric  style.  Heine's  melodies 
for  decades  rang  a  little  oversweetly  in  the  Ger- 
man air.  It  was  not  until  the  advent  of  Lilien- 
cron  on  the  one  hand,  Bierbaum  on  the  other, 
that  the  heritage  was  properly  furthered.  It  is 
to  Liliencron  that  we  will  first  come,  since  it 
was  he  who  first  gave  our  own  generation  the 
new  note  that  awoke  German  lyric  literature 
from  its  long  sleep. 

About  Liliencron,  as,  indeed,  about  this  whole 
awakening,  much  here  told  comes  from  Otto  Ju- 
lius Bierbaum.  Just  as  it  was  his  work  which 
first  stirred  my  interest  in  this  whole  matter 
through  the  Island,  through  another  brilliant 
and  sumptuous  magazine  called  Pan,  in  the 
nineties  of  the  last  century,  so  it  was  his  own 
poetry,  his  countless  pages  of  critical  apprecia- 
tion, his  novels  and  stories,  that  led  me  farther 
and  farther  into  the  delightful  field  wherein 
these  contemporaries  of  his  were  laying  the 
foundations  for  the  new  German  literature. 
He  charmed  me  toward  facts,  and  he  lured  me 
into  constantly  making  additions  to  my  collec- 
tion of  sensations. 


IV 

THE  PIONEERS  OF  GERMANY'S  NEW  NATIONALISM 

GERMAN  writing,  especially  in  lyric  forms, 
was  for  something  like  fifty  years  after  1832 
"  mere  literature  "  and  nothing  more.  It  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  life  of  Germany  or  the 
Germans.  Its  sex  was  neuter;  its  crest  was  a 
fig-leaf  rampant  on  a  void.  Nietzsche  called  it 
a  period  of  European  feminism,  and  Michael 
George  Conrad  termed  it  womanized  culture. 
Its  criterion  was  the  young  lady  at  the  fashion- 
able finishing  school.  Her  intelligence  expended 
itself  on  the  worship  of  lieutenants  in  uniform, 
and  her  hair  was  hanging  down  her  back;  but 
German  literature  adored  every  strand  of  it. 
What  was  printed  and  written  was  intended 
sheerly  for  nice  people. 

The  parallels  between  Germany  and  America 
and  England  may  be  drawn  endlessly  in  this  de- 
tail of  a  spineless  literature  following  upon  a 
period  of  militant  and  material  prosperity. 
After  the  Victorian  era  reached  its  highest 
point ;  after  the  too  dear  victory  over  the  Boers, 
English  literature,  in  any  fine  lyric  sense,  suf- 
84 


THE  PIONEERS  35 

fered  reaction.  The  dream  of  outstripping  the 
world  financially  leaves  Americans  with  little 
time  to  waste  upon  the  arts.  They  may  sign 
cheques  for  it,  but  they  scorn  to  give  it  a  real 
place  in  their  lives.  (Let  me  remark,  here,  that 
it  is  the  people  of  the  United  States  to  whom 
I  refer ;  their  arrogating  to  themselves  the  title 
American  is  properly  punctured  not  only  by  the 
Italian  critic,  Ferrero,  but  by  the  bland  inquiry 
of  the  average  Parisian :  "  Ah,  of  the  South,  or 
of  the  North  ?  "  )  Similarly  the  triumphant  Ger- 
man of  1870,  forming  a  new  and  lusty  nation 
upon  cannons  and  bayonets,  was  content  to  feed, 
artistically,  upon  pap  for  babes.  The  men  who 
had  but  lately  been  behind  the  guns  had  no  time 
for  song  or  story,  the  more  so  as  the  song  and 
story  offered  them  were  of  an  emasculation  only 
fit  for  old  wives'  Kaffee-Klatsches.  You  cannot 
blame  them  much;  the  spectacle  of  an  able- 
bodied  German  reading  the  Garterdaube  would 
have  been  as  comic  as  that  of  a  member  of  the 
household  cavalry  sucking  his  thumb. 

What  was  not  mere  echo,  mere  imitation  of 
other  imitators,  was  style  without  substance. 
Literature  was  a  matter  of  phrases  and  man- 
nerisms ;  its  devotees  disputed  about  technics, 
and  the  air  reeked  with  such  shibboleths  as  de- 
cadence, milieu,  fin  de  siecle,  etc.  Modernity, 
realism,  idealism,  symbolism,  naturalism,  and 
art  for  art's  sake,  these  words  filled  the  ozoneless 


V 

36  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

air.  As  for  anything  actually  voicing  the  Ger- 
man spirit  —  a  spirit  as  yet  only  in  the  making, 
perhaps,  but  vivid  enough  —  it  did  not  exist. 
The  jugglers  in  phrases  went  abroad  for  idols 
to  worship.  First  they  looked  to  France,  and 
there  ensued,  for  prose,  for  poetry  and  play,  a 
flood  of  French  and  pseudo-French  echoes.  The 
positive  and  realistic  prose  of  De  Maupassant 
and  Bourget  had  much  sway  in  Germany,  and 
you  may  trace  the  influence  of  the  former  quite 
close  to  the  present  time,  through  Liliencron, 
Schnitzler  and  others.  Baudelaire,  Verlaine, 
Mallarme  and  Maeterlinck  exerted  influence  on 
the  lyric  artists  of  Germany.  After  the 
Frenchmen,  came  the  other  nations,  the  Norwe- 
gians and  the  Russians,  eventually  even  the 
Irishman,  Wilde,  the  Italian  D'Annunzio,  and 
the  American  Whitman.  Not  a  single  German 
of  the  period  immediately  after  1870  was  of  real 
European  importance  in  fiction,  in  the  theatre, 
or  in  song.  A  writer's  reputation  went  no 
farther  than  the  German  border.  National, 
social,  universal  questions  were  left  untouched ; 
parochial  family  circles  might  know  the  names 
of  this  or  that  polite  polisher  of  belles  lettres, 
but  the  world  at  large  never  heard  their  names. 
The  giants  were  elsewhere,  in  Russia  and  Scan- 
dinavia, England  and  France. 

After  1881  began  a  great  dying-off  of  these 
undersized    talents   who   had    succeeded   to   the 


THE  PIONEERS  37 

great  period  of  Goethe  and  Heine.  In  1885 
appeared  a  pamphlet  by  Karl  Bleibtreu  giving 
warning  of  a  rebellion  against  these  too  long 
worshiped  puny  idols  of  German  literature. 
Against  the  professorial  historians  who  dug 
about  in  Roman  ruins  and  offered  the  result  as 
a  German  novel ;  against  antiquarian  researches 
into  the  past ;  against  poetry  that  reeked  of 
catacombs.  The  methods  of  Zola  encouraged 
the  young  German  rebels ;  the  plays  of  Ibsen 
had  already  been  performed  in  Munich  and 
Berlin ;  and  such  men  as  Bleibtreu,  M.  G.  Con- 
rad, Hermann  Conradi  and  the  two  Harts, 
Heinrich  and  Julius,  pointed  the  new  paths. 

Not  one  of  these  men  achieved,  individually, 
great  things  in  German  literature,  but  as 
bridge-builders,  pioneers  of  a  more  natural  and 
national  period  they  deserve  all  possible  credit. 
There  has  been  plenty  of  scorn  spilt  upon  the 
period  of  ferment  and  disquiet  which  these  men 
inaugurated.  Strife  and  contumely  raged  as 
bitterly  as  in  any  political  campaign.  These 
new  men,  these  youngsters,  had  not  in  them- 
selves any  quality  greater  than  their  realization 
that  the  namby-pamby  literature  all  about  them 
must  not,  should  not  last.  That,  surely,  was 
enough.  The  very  fury  of  their  secession  fruc- 
tified the  field  for  the  real  artistic  uplift  that 
followed  them. 

The  rebellion  sprang  up  in  many  places  al- 


38  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

most  simultaneously,  as  if  from  conscious  con- 
spiracy. In  Charlottenburg,  it  was  the  wor- 
shiper of  Napoleon  and  Byron,  Bleibtreu;  in 
Magdeburg  it  was  Hermann  Conradi  and  Jo- 
hannes Schlaf,  in  Paris  M.  G.  Conrad,  elsewhere 
even  such  journalists  as  Maximilian  Harden  and 
Hermann  Bahr  took  up  the  rebel  cry.  The 
movement  for  freedom  from  the  old  restraints, 
for  the  expression  of  true  German  youthfulness 

—  in  a  word,  the  Green-German  movement,  as  it 
was  dubbed  by  both  its  enemies  and  its  friends 

—  spread  quickly.     Away  from  all  conventions, 
was  the  cry,  even  from  the  convention  of  Bohe- 
mia, of  poetic  wigs  and  flowing  ties  and  velvet- 
een !    The  rebel  cry  itself  became,  eventually,  as 
conventional  as  the  chorus  it  pretended  to  de- 
spise;   that    was    where    these    bridge-builders 
failed;   yet  their  bridge  remained. 

THE  Darwinian  theory  of  evolution  in  litera- 
ture will  ever  appeal  to  the  didactic ;  others  will 
continue  to  maintain  that  the  devil  and  Dame 
Chance  have  quite  as  much  to  do  with  the  matter 
as  any  logical  play  of  cause  and  effect.  This 
period  of  youthful  rebellion  among  the  German 
writers  in  the  latter  years  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury had,  for  example,  its  equivalent  in  the 
United  States  where,  during  the  'nineties,  some 
young  rebels  attempted  secession  from  the 
stereotype  of  magazine-literature.  A  fluttering 


THE  PIONEERS  39 

of  little  pamphlets,  in  imitation  of  the  English 
chap-books  of  an  earlier  century,  tried  to  stir 
the  reading  public  into  realization  of  this  or 
that  rebellious  talent.  In  San  Francisco  it  was 
the  Lark,  with  Gelett  Burgess  and  Porter  Gar- 
nett  doing  most  of  the  blithe  singing;  in  Chi- 
cago it  was  the  Chap-Book,  which  two  young 
Harvard  men,  Herbert  Stone  and  Ingalls  Kim- 
ball,  had  evolved  in  their  Cambridge  leisure,  and 
which  the  Canadian  poet,  Bliss  Carman, 
launched  for  them  to  the  distress  of  the  conven- 
tional majority  and  the  delight  of  the  discrim- 
inating few.  This  present  advocate  was  himself 
one  of  those  chap-men. 

That  little  American  rebellion  to  all  appear- 
ances evaporated  futilely.  You  can  find  no 
trace  of  it  in  what  is  being  written  in  America 
to-day.  The  rebels  mostly  conformed;  others 
gave  it  up  with  a  shrug;  the  fewest  continued 
in  the  way  of  obvious  public  failure,  choosing, 
sardonically,  to  spell  such  failure  Success.  As 
far  as  the  reading  public  is  concerned,  and  the 
conductors  of  the  paramount  public  prints,  that 
little  rebellion  is  as  if  it  had  never  been.  Its 
tiny  lyric  note  seems  dead  in  our  commercial  air. 
And  yet,  because  I  must  believe  what  I  wish  to 
believe,  I  refuse  to  think  it  altogether  dead. 
The  cart-tail  orators  prate  forever  of  our 
Young  Nation ;  is  that  youth  to  expend  itself 
in  the  pursuit  of  Mammon?  No,  if  we  would 


40  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

really  hold  our  youth  alive  within  us,  we  must 
let  it  echo  to  the  lyric  note  in  life,  and  let  mere 
lucre  go.  The  "  pursuit  of  happiness  "  which 
a  certain  unintentionally  comic  document  de- 
clares as  the  right  of  all  American  citizens,  is 
nothing  else  than  a  striving  in  our  lives  for 
some  few  lyric  moments. 

The  German  literary  rebellion  that  we  were 
considering  held  the  seed  of  an  actual  national 
renascence  of  arts.  That  seed  sprang  from 
much  ferment,  much  froth  of  party  strife,  and 
those  who  fought  and  frothed  deserve  a  little 
attention  here. 

HEINRICH  and  Julius  Hart  let  the  new  note 
of  rebellion  sound  bravely  in  their  periodical 
the  Berlin  Monthly  for  Literature,  Criticism 
and  the  Theatre.  Heinrich  Hart  had  already, 
as  early  as  1878,  sent  out  a  set  of  songs  called 
"  Weltpfingsten,"  in  which  he  disclosed  the 
same  cosmic  vastness  of  conception  that  he  tried 
to  sketch  in  the  "  Song  of  Humanity,"  pub- 
lished in  1887.  The  two  together  published 
"  Critical  Campaigns  "  in  1882,  in  which  they 
contended  manfully  for  clearing  away  the  old 
traditions  and  formulas  that  held  the  writing 
of  their  country  still  in  chains.  They  fought 
for  the  right  of  the  individual  in  criticism ;  for 
style  that  should  voice  personality ;  for  the 
value  of  the  ego  and  its  impressions.  They 


THE  PIONEEES  41 

flung  scorn  at  the  effeminate  imitators  of  Schil- 
ler. Their  critical  force  did  not  die  with  them ; 
it  gave  eminent  courage  and  example  to  the 
younger  men  who  followed. 

The  Harts  came  from  Miinster.  Heinrich 
was  born  in  1855;  Julius  in  1859.  In  1877 
they  came  to  Berlin  and  began  the  fight  that 
was  to  mean  so  much  ink,  so  much  passion,  so 
much  poverty.  Poverty  drove  them  home  again, 
but  they  returned  again  to  the  Berlin  arena,  as 
full  furnished  as  ever  with  plays,  poems  and 
plots  against  the  literary  complacency  of  their 
time.  Their  life  in  Berlin  has  come  down  to  us 
in  many  gipsy  legends.  The  strangest  figures 
filled  their  bare  rooms:  bankrupt  actors,  penni- 
less students,  unkempt  would-be  poets,  and  all 
manner  of  unwashed  and  homeless  geniuses 
strutted  or  slept  there.  They  lived  there  for 
days  or  weeks,  borrowed  and  disappeared.  Out 
of  the  mob  of  disreputables  and  thankless  ones 
of  those  days,  some  few  emerged  who  later  be- 
came valuable  figures  in  the  new  movement.  The 
Harts  deserve  memory  not  only  for  the  vigor  of 
their  critical  campaigns,  but  for  the  largeness 
of  their  hospitality  to  a  ragged  and  often  only 
too  worthless  crew.  They  themselves  did  not 
allow  their  poetic  or  critical  strength  to  be 
sapped  by  the  gipsy  life  that  centred  about 
them.  Eventually  they  moved  to  Friedrichs- 
hagen,  where  what  was  known  as  the  "  circle 


42  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

by  the  sea,"  in  which  even  such  as  Gerhardt 
Hauptmann,  Hartleben,  Halbe,  Wedekind,  and 
Strindberg  had  place,  surrounded  them.  Crit- 
ically they  rose  into  general  prominence;  1887 
to  1900  the  Taegliche  Rundschau  printed  them ; 
then  the  Deutsche  Zeitung  and  then  Der  Tag. 
Heinrich  Hart  died  in  1906.  Ernst  von  Wol- 
zogen's  comedy  "  Lumpengesindel  "  —  which 
you  may  call  "  Rag,  Tag  and  Bobtail "  —  has 
been  declared  based  on  the  Berlin  bohemian- 
ism  of  the  Harts,  but  it  would  be  wrong 
to  judge  the  Harts  themselves  by  what, 
in  that  play,  are  obvious  and  gross  carica- 
tures. 

KARL  BLEIBTRETJ  sprang  from  a  family  of 
property  and  culture.  His  father  was  Georg 
Bleibtreu,  of  Xanten,  in  the  Rhineland,  ranking 
in  the  early  fifties  as  one  of  the  foremost  histor- 
ical painters  in  Germany.  Karl  was  born  1859 
in  Berlin.  His  mind  ripened  extraordinarily 
soon ;  in  art  as  in  science  his  accomplishments 
had  both  the  qualities  and  the  defects  of  pre- 
cocity. From  the  university  he  journeyed 
abroad  in  the  world ;  then  settled  in  Charlotten- 
burg,  a  suburb  of  Berlin,  for  a  period  of  study 
and  almost  feverish  composition  of  novels, 
poems,  plays  and  battle  scenes.  Of  all  the 
ninety  volumes  that  he  flung  upon  the  world, 
nothing  remains  that  need  concern  us.  His 


THE  PIONEERS  43 

"  Dies  Irae,"  published  in  1882,  was  a  series  of 
campaign  pictures  in  prose  that  had  success 
in  its  day;  but  it  is  only  through  his  1886 
pamphlet,  "  The  Revolution  in  Literature,"  that 
he  has  value  for  posterity.  What  he  himself 
wrote  was  intention  rather  than  accomplish- 
ment ;  his  poetry  limped  after  Byron,  his  prose 
after  Zola.  Yet  his  striving  was,  always,  away 
from  the  accepted  conventions  of  his  time,  and 
he  had  in  him  such  ferment  of  youth  and  crea- 
tiveness  that  he  succeeded  in  furnishing  the 
younger  men  with  courage  and  battle  cries.  His 
intention  was  to  introduce  actual  modern  life 
into  his  art,  and  at  the  same  time  to  destroy  the 
old  idealistic,  or  pretty-pretty  methods  of  that 
art.  Only  his  intent  remains  to  us.  As  in  his 
pamphlet  he  had  declared  a  youthful  revolution, 
so  in  The  Magazine,  which  he  conducted  from 
1887  to  1888,  and  in  Society,  1888  to  1890, 
he  gave  a  trumpet  to  the  lips  of  youth.  Soci- 
ety (Die  Gesellschaft)  had  been  founded  by 
Michael  Geo.  Conrad  in  Munich,  and  it  was  he 
who  later  carried  it  on.  The  success  of  Haupt- 
mann,  determined  by  the  performance  of  "  Be- 
fore Sunrise "  on  the  Free  Stage  which  the 
Harts  and  Maximilian  Harden  and  others 
conspired  to  start,  marked  the  moment  of 
Bleibtreu's  disappearance  from  the  literary 
arena.  Yet  he  had  helped  to  build  the 
bridge. 


44  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

THE  youths  of  1885  gave  freely  of  themselves 
in  their  fight  against  things  as  they  were.  They 
spilt  their  enthusiasm  and  their  egos  equally. 
Their  enemies  accused  them  of  overweening  van- 
ity, and  Bleibtreu  himself,  in  a  moment  of  rebel- 
lion against  the  rebellion,  declared  their  watch- 
word to  be  Megalomania.  These  youths  were 
full  of  adolescent  ferment;  unripeness  marked 
their  work;  yet  they  ventured  their  all  upon 
their  beliefs ;  they  were  willing  to  suffer  for  their 
faith.  That  faith  held  to  the  need  for  revival 
of  an  actually  national,  Germanic  note,  for  di- 
vorce from  foreign  idols.  "  The  spirit  that 
moves  our  songs  and  our  stories,"  wrote  Her- 
mann Conradi,  in  1884,  in  his  preface  to  "  Dich- 
tercharactere,"  "  is  the  spirit  of  revived  na- 
tionalism." 

The  title  of  this  book  has  no  adequate  equiv- 
alent in  English,  though  the  dictionary  might 
lead  you  to  suppose  "  Poetic  Characters  "  to 
serve  the  purpose.  Dictionaries,  however,  like 
statistics,  are  notorious  and  abominable  liars. 
The  Germans  use  the  word  "  dichter  "  in  a  large 
general  sense  that  we  can  only  feebly  approach 
by  "  artist."  The  "  dichter  "  can  work  in  prose, 
in  play  or  poetry.  The  word,  for  the  strictly 
English  comprehension,  is  only  slightly  more 
irritating  than  "  schriftsteller,"  which  we  must 
declare  to  mean  simply  "  writer  "  in  spite  of  its 
formidable  wealth  of  syllables.  Unless,  that  is, 


THE  PIONEERS  45 

you  prefer  the  label  "  author,"  which,  while  it 
may  impress  the  census-taker  and  the  chamber- 
maid, always  makes  me  shudder.  Some  words 
are  like  motor-cars  and  diamonds:  the  wrong 
people  use  them. 

I  ask  you  particularly  to  note  this  digres- 
sion ;  the  value  of  this  book  lies  somewhat  in  its 
digressions.  The  facts  you  may  find  elsewhere; 
even  I  have  been  able  to  do  that.  In  a  weak 
moment  I  undertook  to  write  this  book,  and 
what  I  suffer  in  consequence,  from  having  to 
give  up,  for  this  interminable  space  of  time, 
riding  across  country  in  the  daytime  and  read- 
ing The  Sporting  Times  after  dark,  makes  the 
experience  of  you,  who  read,  entirely  trivial. 
Do  you  imagine,  however,  that  such  a  digression 
as  this  is  of  no  pertinence?  You  are  mistaken. 
It  is  only  as  we  hold  literature  to  be  a  slight 
part  of  life,  that  we  can  retain  the  proper  hu- 
man charm  that  shall  extend  the  circle  to  which 
we  appeal.  What  is  only  too  much  the  matter 
everywhere  to-day,  —  as  it  was  with  the  most 
ineffectual  of  the  German  youths  of  the  1885 
period,  —  is  that  literature  is  so  largely  an  af- 
fair of  shoptalk  for  shopmen.  Life  is  the  great 
thing;  literature  is  merely  an  incident.  Only 
as  one  remembers  that,  can  the  thing  written  be 
vital.  Even  Mr.  Howells,  now  that  Mark 
Twain  is  dead,  admits  this. 

One  reason  why  those  verdant  Germans  of 


46  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

the  'eighties  were  in  themselves  so  ineffectual  — 
though  in  handing  on  the  torch,  they  were  ef- 
fectual enough !  —  was  that  they  were  more 
concerned  with  programs  than  with  perform- 
ance. Julius  Hart,  in  a  preface  to  his  verses 
"  Homo  Sum,"  announced  the  new  lyric  note  as 
keyed  to  an  objective  treatment  of  life,  singing 
single  impressions  rather  than  typical  ones. 
That  objectivity  again  became,  in  the  program 
of  Hermann  Conradi,  a  reflection  of  external 
things  upon  the  mirror  of  one's  own  soul ;  para- 
doxically, subjectivity  was  reached.  All  the 
extremes  of  poetic  intention  lay  in  Conradi's 
above  named  volume,  which  contained  also  verses 
by  Wilhelm  Arent,  John  Henry  Mackay,  Mau- 
rice Reinhold  von  Stern,  and  Karl  Henckell. 

Conradi  died  in  1890.  He  burnt  out  his 
life  feverishly.  He  was  typical  of  youth's  too 
furied  ferment.  All  his  years  were  fulfilled  with 
passions ;  neither  calm  nor  content  ever  came  to 
him.  Dissatisfaction,  longing  for  tangible  be- 
yonds,  and  a  brutal  tearing  of  all  physical  veils 
from  sexuality,  marked  his  career.  It  was  his 
poems,  "  Songs  of  a  Sinner,"  and  his  stories, 
"  Brutalities,"  that  began  the  modern  German 
psychology  of  sex,  and  pointed  the  path  away 
from  the  prudery  of  the  Gartenlaube  as  well  as 
from  the  cold  aestheticism  of  the  professors  of 
science.  It  was  small  wonder  that  he  died  early, 
from  too  much  love  of  living.  Yet  he  too 


THE  PIONEERS  47 

helped  to  build  the  bridge.  Direct  links  span 
from  him  to  the  still  living  Richard  Dehmel. 
Hermann  Conradi  was  born  in  1862,  of  Mag- 
deburg parents.  Most  of  his  schooling  was  in 
that  town,  though  he  finished  it  in  Leipzig.  He 
followed  the  poetic  anthology,  "  Moderne  Dich- 
tercharaktere,"  with  his  own  stories,  "  Brutali- 
ties," in  1887,  and  the  next  year  plunged  into 
serious  philosophy  in  Munich.  Nietzsche  came 
into  his  world,  and  the  turmoil  in  him  responded 
fiercely.  His  soul  writhed  between  pity  and  pas- 
sion, from  the  tragedy  of  all  humanity  to  the 
futility  of  the  ego.  His  nature,  always  at  war 
with  itself,  came  to  exemplify  literally  the  words 
of  Nietzsche:  "  I  tell  you,  you  must  have  chaos 
in  you,  if  you  would  give  birth  to  a  dancing 
star ! "  But  in  Conradi  nothing  was  ever 
created  out  of  that  chaos.  In  1889  he  went 
to  Wiirzburg  to  take  his  degree  as  doctor  of 
philosophy.  The  authorities  of  Leipzig  prose- 
cuted him  for  blasphemies  and  immoralities 
found  in  his  novel,  "  Adam  Mensch,"  and  before 
conclusion  of  that  trial,  1890,  at  the  age  of 
twenty-eight,  he  died.  He  had  gone  the  gamut 
of  artistic  sensation  and  belief.  He  began 
idealist,  concluded  brutal  cynic.  His  youth, 
warm,  tender  and  trusting,  felt  too  deeply  the 
brutalities  of  the  world,  and  went,  in  its  pain, 
to  the  utterest  extreme.  But  his  agonies  had 
helped  to  liberate  his  generation  from  many 


48  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

rusty  chains.  As  a  psychologist  he  went  deep ; 
his  dissecting  knife  went  sharply  into  creatures 
and  causes ;  and  his  later  pessimism  clarified  his 
outlook  and  even  enabled  him  to  see  himself 
without  distortion.  Futile  to  speculate,  now, 
upon  what  he  might  have  done  had  he  lived.  He 
carried  on  the  fire;  that  was  enough. 

Two  other  contributors  to  that  anthology 
cannot  be  slighted,  though  they  have  shaped 
their  art  to  such  hard  formalism  as  is  the  direct 
opposition  to  the  natural  lyric  spontaneity  in 
appreciation  of  which  this  book  is  written. 
These  are  Arno  Holz  and  Johannes  Schlaf . 

For  years  these  two  worked  together.  The 
rhythms  of  Holz  fulfilled  more  accurately  than 
any  others  the  somewhat  vague  programs  of 
Henckell  and  Conradi.  He  joined  those  others, 
the  Harts  and  Bleibtreu,  but  he  refused  to  share 
their  somewhat  chaotic  passions.  His  art  was 
constantly  expressing  itself  more  coldly,  more 
scientifically.  He  tried  experiment  after  experi- 
ment, announced  program  after  program.  No 
Nikola  Tesla  ever  declared  more  formulas  than 
Arno  Holz ;  he  treated  versification  with  a  skill 
and  a  sure  application  of  onomatopoeic  method, 
to  delight  Maxim  or  any  other  scientist.  If 
poetry  can  be  written  like  that,  with  conscious 
deftness  of  technique,  upon  set  theories  and  for- 
mulas, Arno  Holz  must  be  ranked  as  a  poet. 


THE  PIONEERS  49 

There  is  no  denying  that  he  is  a  fine  artist.  He, 
at  least,  survives  of  all  those  Green  Germans  as 
something  more  than  a  builder  of  bridges.  He 
remains  a  creative  craftsman,  with  a  place  as- 
sured in  the  German  literature  of  to-day. 

The  program  was  always  paramount  with 
Holz.  His  collection  of  verses,  "  The  Book  of 
Time,"  1885,  exposed  an  unusual  skill  in  craft, 
and  also  the  craftsman's  theories  about  his  art. 
Those  theories  he  elaborated  specifically  in  1891 
in  his  "  The  Nature  of  Art  and  its  Laws,"  and 
in  "Revolution  of  the  Lyric"  in  1899.  He 
declared  the  need  for  new  lyric  forms  to  suit 
the  new  forms  of  life  itself;  he  declared  words, 
as  words,  to  be  the  fittest  media,  rather  than  ar- 
bitrary rhymes  and  modulations  that  controlled 
words.  In  his  "  Phantasus  "  volumes  he  evolved 
poetic  forms  for  his  theories,  and  the  results 
cannot  but  interest  us,  who  recall  Whitman, 
Henley  and  even  the  eccentricities  of  Stephen 
Crane.  Of  late  years  Holz  has  produced  but 
little ;  yet  his  work  must  indubitably  be  reckoned 
into  the  valuable  German  art  of  our  time.  From 
first  to  last  he  has  fought  valiantly;  his  theo- 
ries have  never  lacked  interest,  and  his  ambi- 
tions for  a  lyric  regeneration  have  been  fiery 
with  sincerity.  Out  of  those  ambitions,  his  def- 
initions of  them,  the  lyric  workman  of  the  fu- 
ture will  surely  draw  profit.  His  own  satisfac- 
tion with  his  position  as  mere  pioneer  he  ad- 


50  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

mitted  in  a  contribution  made  some  years  ago 
to  a  symposium  upon  the  subject  of  the  future 
of  German  literature,  and  in  a  sentence  in  his 
own  "  Revolution  of  the  Lyric  " ;  in  the  former 
he  believed  that  the  dawn  of  a  new  drama  was 
at  hand,  with  Germany  leading  the  way,  while 
in  the  latter  he  had  given  up  that  belief  as  far 
as  his  own  land  was  concerned,  concluding: 
"  The  dawn  will  not  be  ours.  We  will  have 
sown  the  seed ;  where  it  will  ripen,  Heaven  only 
knows."  He  was  content  to  have  been  there 
when  the  seed  was  sown. 

Compared  to  what  he  formulated,  and  what 
he  actually  accomplished,  in  lyric  art,  his  pio- 
neering theories  about  prose  and  the  drama  are 
negligible.  Yet  even  there  at  least  one  detail 
must  be  mentioned.  Especially  as  I  have  seen 
no  mention  of  it  in  any  of  the  books  about 
Gerhardt  Hauptmann  that  our  language  holds. 

Here  is  the  detail:  When  Arno  Holz  and 
Johannes  Schlaf  were  living  and  writing  to- 
gether, among  the  volumes  by  which  they 
blazed  a  new  artistic  path  was  one,  dated  1889, 
called  "  Papa  Hamlet."  It  was  still,  despite 
the  rebellion  of  the  few,  a  period  of  foreign 
dominance.  Realizing  this,  Holz  and  Schlaf 
elaborated  a  literary  hoax,  signing  this  collec- 
tion of  sketches  and  tales  with  the  name  Bjarne 
P.  Holmsen,  and  prefacing  it  with  some  pages 
of  an  alleged  translator,  Dr.  Bruno  Franzius, 


THE  PIONEERS  51 

who  told  of  the  life  and  work  of  the  Norwegian, 
Holmsen.  The  trick  worked.  Success,  and  the 
most  conflicting  welter  of  critical  opinion,  came 
to  "  Papa  Hamlet."  And  —  here  comes  the 
comedy  of  the  thing,  and  the  detail  that  is  of 
actual  value  in  following  the  progress  of  mod- 
ern German  letters  —  it  was  this  book,  and  the 
following  play,  "  The  Family  Selicke  "  (per- 
formed on  the  Free  Stage  in  1880),  that  gave 
Hauptmann  the  impetus  to  write  his  "  Before 
Sunrise."  These  technical  experiments  of  Holz 
and  Schlaf  were  what  moved  Hauptmann  himself 
to  steer  away  from  the  conventions  of  his  time. 

"  Before  Sunrise,"  when  first  it  appeared, 
was  dedicated  to  Bjarne  P.  Holmsen. 

As  Hauptmann  and  others  accepted  the  new 
formulas,  the  reason  for  the  farther  alliance  be- 
tween Holz  and  Schlaf  ceased.  Happiness  or 
material  success  does  not  seem  to  have  come  to 
either  of  these  men.  Fate  dealt  unkindly  with 
both  in  personal  ways.  Holz  once  averred,  in 
1896,  that  he  could  write  no  more;  but  his 
"  Phantasus  "  volumes,  most  expressive  of  his 
new  lyric  devices,  have  since  disproven  that 
plaint.  It  is  a  fact,  however,  that  for  his  450- 
page  "  Book  of  Time  "  he  received  the  sum  of 
five  dollars. 

Holz  was  born  in  1863.  His  versification 
first  followed  the  familiar  strains  of  Geibel  and 
Heine,  and  only  later  he  evolved  his  rebellious 


52  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

creeds.  The  years  with  Schlaf  were  1887  and 
1888.  Johannes  Schlaf  was  born  in  1862,  near 
Merseburg.  Magdeburg  saw  his  first  schooling, 
his  first  itch  for  ink.  He  became,  with  Hermann 
Conradi,  one  of  the  young  radicals  of  that  town. 
He  studied  further  in  Halle,  and  Berlin,  and 
then  threw  all  studies  overboard  to  join  his 
ways  with  those  of  Holz.  Yet  it  was  only  after 
loosing  himself  from  the  latter  that  he  reached, 
lyrically,  something  like  a  natural,  spontaneous 
expression  of  self  and  of  his  race.  The  vol- 
umes "  In  Dingsda  "  and  "  Friihling  "  have 
Whitmanesque  touches  upon  the  note  of  the 
ego ;  but  there  is  a  note,  too,  of  new  national- 
ism that  insures  him  a  place  in  the  new  literature 
of  Germany.  Quite  lately,  his  stories,  "  Der 
Prinz  "  and  "  Am  Toten  Punkt,"  have  brought 
him  into  front  rank  as  novelist. 

IF  we  pass  the  names  of  the  journalists  who 
also  had  share  in  this  path-blazing  —  pausing 
only  long  enough  to  mention  Maximilian  Har- 
den, born  in  1861,  in  Berlin,  who  was  actor 
before  he  was  journalist;  whose  career,  for 
readers  of  English,  is  bound  up  with  a  certain 
criminal  prosecution  that  caused,  not  so  long 
ago,  a  distinctly  unpleasant  set  of  disclosures 
to  taint  the  German  air;  and  whose  prose 
(in  his  own  periodical  Die  Zukunft,  and 
more  succinctly  in  his  volume  of  character- 


THE  PIONEERS  53 

studies  called  "  Kopfe  "  (Heads),  1910,  force- 
ful sketches  of  the  foremost  European  figures 
of  our  time)  gives  him  rank  in  any  gallery  of 
militant  men  of  letters  of  the  type  of  Kipling 
and  Shaw  —  we  come  finally  to  the  name  of 
Michael  Geo.  Conrad.  He,  more  than  any  of 
the  others,  spanned  the  older  period  to  the  new. 
He,  more  directly  than  the  others,  fostered  that 
poet  who  best  was  to  lift  the  new  German  lyric 
note,  the  note  of  the  new  Germany.  Let  us  ad- 
mit him  negligible  in  his  creations.  He  was  the 
godfather  of  the  future;  that  was  enough. 

He  was  born  in  1846,  the  son  of  a  Frankish 
peasant.  At  sixteen  he  left  home  to  become  a 
teacher ;  he  studied  philosophy ;  saw  something 
of  the  world;  lived  in  Switzerland  and  Italy. 
Accident  brought  first  Nietzsche's  work,  then 
Nietzsche  himself,  across  his  path.  He  turned 
writer ;  went  to  Paris ;  worshiped  Zola ; 
stayed  in  Paris  until  1882,  returning  then  to 
Munich.  He  had  share,  in  1885,  in  founding 
Society,  which  became  the  banner  of  the  new 
generation.  Among  those  who  rallied  about 
this  banner  were  Max  Halbe,  the  dramatist,  Von 
Wolzogen  and  Bierbaum.  Bierbaum  once  said 
that  if  ever  a  history  of  Green  Germany  came 
to  be  written,  that  would  also  be  a  history  of 
Society,  and  the  first  chapter  would  have  to 
be  headed:  Michael  Georg  Conrad.  It  was  his 
sympathetic  and  forceful  direction  that  deter- 


54  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

mined  the  entire  new  movement.  It  was  he  — 
and  at  last  we  come  to  the  first  of  the  men  this 
book  is  to  try  and  lure  you  into  appreciating  — 
who  first  gave  space  to  the  lyrics  of  Detlev  von 
Liliencron.  Bierbaum  teaches  us  what  manner 
of  man  Conrad  was:  despite  his  years  a  com- 
rade to  all  the  younger  men  whom  he  encour- 
aged, a  constant  stimulus  to  young  ambitions, 
a  flaming  sword  for  friends  and  against  foes, 
mincing  nothing,  stopping  at  nothing,  full  of 
fierce  hates  and  loves;  just  the  man  for  a  set 
of  young  rebels.  Surely  fame  should  accrue  to 
the  great  editor,  as  to  the  artist;  to  Henley, 
who  discovered  talented  men,  as  to  Henley,  who 
wrote  "  In  Hospital."  Conrad  led  these  young- 
sters on,  and  they  never  looked  on  him  as  other 
than  one  of  themselves.  Even  so  Liliencron, 
himself  of  an  elder  generation,  was  the  first  to 
give  the  present  generation  an  actual  vivid  re- 
newal of  such  a  national  note  in  German  lyric 
literature  as  had  not  been  heard  since  1832. 


DETLEV    VON    ULIENCRON 

NOT  until  Detlev  von  Liliencron  came  was 
there  a  revival  of  an  actual  note  of  truly  Ger- 
man nationalism.  No  such  naively  singing  soul 
had  been  heard  since  Goethe.  Only  Verlaine,  in 
France,  equalled  him  in  lyric  spontaneity.  He 
was  utterly  a  German ;  he  lived  as  a  German ; 
he  put  that  life  directly  into  his  songs  and  his 
stories.  He  lived  first,  wrote  afterwards ;  the 
note  of  life,  of  actual  experience  illumines  his 
every  line.  You  forget,  reading  him,  any  ques- 
tion of  craft,  just  as  he  himself  forgot  it,  to 
all  appearance.  Only  nature  —  the  German 
nature,  the  German  scene,  the  life  of  himself,  a 
German  —  had  anything  to  teach  him ;  he  fol- 
lowed in  no  footsteps,  obeyed  no  formulas. 

He  was  soldier,  huntsman,  cavalier,  country 
magistrate  first;  he  lived  his  life  vigorously 
and  variously ;  literature  was  a  last  resort. 
You  never  smelt  literature  in  what  he  wrote; 
what  you  smelt  was  life;  the  blood  and  powder 
of  battles,  the  soil  of  his  northern  lands,  the 
55 


56  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

glitter  of  uniforms ;  always  life,  life.  Few 
men,  anywhere,  led  a  life  more  full  of  color; 
few  put  more  of  that  color  into  their  writing. 
He  spanned  the  gulfs  from  the  swagger  officer 
to  the  vagabond;  from  the  magistrate  to  the 
infidel;  from  the  rank  feudalist  to  the  soldier 
in  liberty's  cause;  from  the  balladist  of  wed- 
lock to  the  egoistic  Don  Juan ;  from  a  birth- 
right of  Danish  allegiance  to  a  supporter  of 
the  Prussian  standards.  He  lived  at  top  pres- 
sure; it  is  for  that  reason,  when  he  came,  late 
in  life,  to  express  his  experience  in  words,  those 
words  went  straight,  full  pressure  also,  to  the 
mark. 

THE  need  for  keeping  literature  quite  inci- 
dental to  life  itself  is  something  that  cannot 
too  often  be  declared.  The  point  of  view,  or 
the  actual  expression  through  art,  which  sets 
life  subsidiary  to  literature,  results  in  nothing 
but  "  mere  literature."  This  dealing  in  defini- 
tions, in  explanations,  how  futile  it  all  is !  The 
moment,  for  example,  you  can  put  your  finger 
upon  a  fine  bit  of  singing  stuff,  and  say  why 
and  how  it  charms  you ;  that  moment  the 
charm  is  off.  That,  I  hope,  is  one  mistake  I 
will  avoid  in  this  present  book.  If  I  tell  you 
that  I  found  this  or  that  song  lilting  in  my 
memory  for  days,  or  weeks  or  years,  I  will  be 
no  such  fool  as  to  spoil  your  chances  of  catch- 


DETLEV  VON  LILIENCRON          57 

ing   my   enthusiasm   by    dissecting   the   charm. 
As  well  dissect  gossamer  and  star-dust! 

Is  there  something  about  the  profession  of 
poetry  —  the  intention  was  not  ironic,  yet  for 
American  consumption  the  phrase's  irony  re- 
mains !  —  that  tends  to  relegate  life  into  a  mere 
medium  for  literature?  All  too  few  are  those 
who  resemble  Liliencron  in  the  variousness  of 
his  life  and  the  naturalness  of  his  work. 
Against  many  sorts  of  poets  I  have  known  — 
one  sort,  for  example,  which  goes  to  the  ex- 
treme of  literary  convention  by  talking  to  all 
women  as  if  they  were  merely  eyebrows  for  an 
unborn  sonnet,  and  by  frequenting  those  places 
in  the  world  where  other  romantic  souls  once 
lived  and  loved;  another,  which  could  not  see 
in  any  garden  either  trees  or  flowers  or  grass, 
but  only  a  fog  of  ego  and  of  phrases  —  I  have 
known  all  too  few  who,  like  Liliencron  in  one 
place,  like  Ernest  McGaffey  in  another,  were 
men  first,  poets  afterwards. 

FROM  the  mummified  antiquarian  period  of 
German  literature,  resulting,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  in  a  hue  and  cry  of  rebellious  youngsters, 
the  step  to  the  naturalism  and  nationalism  of 
Liliencron  is  made  by  way  of  Richard  Wagner 
and  Friedrich  Nietzsche.  The  poet  Wagner, 
and  the  poet  Nietzsche,  not  the  musician  or  the 
philosopher.  Wagner  first  used  actually  Ger- 


58  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

man  national  material,  and  Nietzsche  developed 
to  courage  and  accomplishment  all  the  young 
Germans  of  his  time. 

While  Nietzsche's  philosophy  has  by  now 
been  most  thoroughly  made  available  for  Eng- 
lish appreciation  —  most  intelligently  and  fas- 
cinatingly, I  think,  through  Henry  L.  Mencken 
—  his  literary  leadership  has  been  insufficiently 
recognized  abroad.  He  was  poet  first,  philoso- 
pher only  as  a  result  of  it.  What  Hauptmann 
did  for  the  German  drama,  Nietzsche  did  for 
the  lyric.  He  taught  his  time  to  look  into  its 
own  soul  and  be  satisfied  therewith ;  he  taught 
the  greatness  of  the  German  soul;  he  taught 
the  uselessness  of  the  old  existing  formulas ;  he 
pointed  the  way  to  the  culture  of  beauty,  the 
exploitation  of  the  individual  impression.  His 
influence  was  on  every  lyric  artist  of  his  day. 
On  none  more  directly  than  on  Liliencron. 
And  the  influence  of  these  two,  Nietzsche  and 
Liliencron,  is,  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
part  of  the  equipment  of  every  living  lyric  ar- 
tist in  Germany. 

FRIEDRICH  VON  LILIENCRON  —  for  he  used 
Detlev  only  as  a  pen  name  —  was  of  an  old 
Schleswig-Holstein  family,  that  had  been  raised 
to  baronetcy  by  the  king  of  Denmark  in  1829. 
He  was  born  in  1844  in  Kiel.  The  lust  for  sol- 
diering came  on  him  when  he  was  still  a  boy, 


DETLEV  VON  LILIENCEON          59 

and  eventually  he  was  to  find  himself  leading 
the  life  of  barrack  and  campaign  in  grim  ear- 
nest. He  was  quartered  in  no  less  than  sixteen 
different  garrisons.  For  Prussia  he  fought  in 
1866,  in  Bohemia,  and  in  '70  in  France;  he 
was  wounded  in  both  campaigns.  His  wounds 
and  his  debts  found  him,  after  the  Franco- 
Prussian  war,  unable  to  continue  his  military 
career;  he  retired  with  the  rank  of  captain  of 
infantry.  He  went  to  the  United  States,  and 
lived  through  several  years  of  poverty  and  suf- 
fering. Returned  home  again,  he  opened  an 
old  box  of  letters ;  came  upon  an  old  battle 
picture,  and  a  surge  of  emotion  made  him  scrib- 
ble some  verses  on  the  back  of  the  picture. 
Those  were  his  first  verses.  He  settled  near 
Hamburg  as  a  country  magistrate,  but  gave 
that  up  in  1887,  and  definitely  commenced  au- 
thor, moving  to  Munich.  Again,  however,  his 
northern  acres  called  to  him,  and  he  returned 
to  Hamburg,  Altona,  and  Kellinghuysen.  His 
life  was  a  constant  battle  against  odds;  pov- 
erty pinched  him  relentlessly;  life  was  every- 
thing to  him,  and  he  lived  it  always  to  the 
full,  no  matter  what  the  cost.  He  held,  above 
all  else,  his  independence  dear.  Even  when, 
after  much  effort  on  the  part  of  his  friends, 
and,  indeed,  at  far  too  late  a  day,  the  Ger- 
man emperor  was  induced  to  grant  him  a  pen- 
sion. 


60  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

So  far  the  bare  sketch  of  the  sort  you  may 
now  find  in  the  Who's  Who  of  every  modern 
land.  Let  us  humanize  the  sketch  a  little  with 
some  remarks  of  his  own,  from  what  he  once 
contributed  about  himself  to  M.  G.  Conrad's 
magazine  Society. 

"  My  boyhood  years  were  lonely  ones ;  the 
shadow  of  Denmark  was  on  them.  I  gathered 
little  from  all  my  schooling;  only  history  fas- 
cinated me,  as  it  still  does  to-day.  Mathe- 
matics, still  a  closed  door  to  me,  embittered  my 
earliest  years.  My  joy  was  in  the  open,  the 
fields.  A  day  with  dog  and  gun,  in  wood,  field 
or  thicket,  remains  to  me  as  the  only  sort  of  day 
worth  living.  Soldiering  had  always  been  my 
dream,  but  I  had  to  go  to  Prussia  to  make  it 
come  true.  I  had  the  luck  to  be  tossed  actively 
about  in  my  years  of  service ;  I  saw  seven  prov- 
inces, seventeen  garrisons ;  I  came  to  know  my 
country  and  my  countrymen.  Eighteen  hun- 
dred and  sixty-four  to  1865  I  saw  the  last 
Polish  rising,  and  then  came  the  wars  with 
Austria  and  France.  Oh,  those  glorious  years 
as  a  young  officer !  The  good  friends  and  com- 
rades ;  the  fine  acceptance  of  duty  and  service, 
the  subduing  of  self!  ...  I  was  thirty  years 
old  when  I  wrote,  accidentally,  my  first 
poem." 

And  here  this  detail,  of  special  interest  to 
Americans : 


DETLEV  VON  LILIENCRON          61 

"  My  mother,  Adeline  Sylvestra,  born  Von 
Harten,  came  from  Philadelphia,  where  my 
grandfather  was  a  general  in  the  American 
army.  He  was,  though  not  half  so  old  in 
years,  one  of  the  last,  closest  friends  of  Wash- 
ington." 

THIS  was  a  real,  entire  man.  Not  one-sided, 
one-ideaed.  Not  simply  soldier,  not  just  a  sport- 
ing squire,  not  just  a  lovelorn  troubadour.  He 
was  all  those  things  and  more.  To-day  they 
read  him  in  barracks,  because  he  told  war- 
stories  as  no  other  German  of  his  time,  and  be- 
cause as  a  barrack-room  balladist  he  ranks  well 
with  Kipling ;  and  they  read  him  in  the  boudoir 
because  when  he  sings  of  love  it  is  not  a  love  of 
frills  and  fancies,  but  a  love  of  flesh  and  blood. 
He  gave  you,  always,  the  tone  of  a  large,  all- 
comprehending,  love  of  life.  And  this,  in  a 
Prussian  officer,  was  no  slight  thing.  That  edu- 
cation, that  routine,  does  not  favor  the  toler- 
ances. Nor  does  the  education,  the  routine,  the 
life,  of  a  country  squire. 

I  know,  for  I  have  seen  the  others.  I  came 
within  an  ace  of  being  a  Prussian  officer  myself. 
If  a  grandam  of  mine  had  had  her  way,  you 
might  have  been  spared  these  present  pages.  A 
far-seeing  old  lady,  you  may  say  ?  Well ;  yours 
the  regret,  then;  mine,  none  the  less,  the  con- 
tinued rejoicing.  For  I  remember  always,  as 


62  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

against  Liliencron,  the  amazing  exception,  an 
own  uncle  of  mine,  the  type. 

Crack  officer  in  a  crack  regiment  of  cavalry ; 
one  of  the  handsomest  men,  with  his  fair,  wa- 
ving mustache,  his  blue  uniform  of  dragoons, 
that  you  could  lay  eyes  on  anywhere.  Lucky, 
too;  tossed  into  the  Franco-Prussian  war 
straight  from  his  very  first  garrison ;  honors 
and  advancement  crowding  on  him  in  the  earli- 
est years ;  commandeered  to  the  great  General 
Staff  in  Berlin ;  sure  of  all  the  rewards  that  can 
come  to  any  officer  in  time  of  peace.  But  as 
for  a  larger  view  of  life  than  the  barracks,  the 
mess-table,  the  soldiering  life  in  war  and  peace, 
it  was  utterly  to  seek  in  him.  His  life  was  as 
ruled  as  a  schoolboy's  copybook ;  the  mechanics 
of  the  German  military  system  were  all  that  had 
passed  on  to  his  intelligence ;  his  conventions  of 
conduct  were  as  narrow  as  the  Regulations  for 
Recruits.  Humanity,  life,  existed  for  him  as 
mere  pawns  in  a  great  military  scheme  of  pre- 
cision. The  extraordinary  thing  was  that  even 
when  he  put  off  the  uniform,  retired  into  pros- 
perity and  the  abominably  ill-fitting  clothes  that 
German  civilian  tailors  have  so  fully  the  secret 
of,  the  uniform's  habit  of  life  and  thought  still 
ruled  him. 

He  was  the  type.  The  best  of  them  are  like 
that.  Even  so,  conforming  to  stiff  conventions, 
purblind  to  the  larger  life  of  to-day,  it  was  that 


DETLEV  VON  LLLIENCRON         63 

type  which  for  decades  ruled  the  imagination 
of  all  the  girls  in  Germany.  The  maiden  with 
her  golden  tresses,  and  the  officer  with  his  glit- 
tering epaulets ;  these  two  dummies  ruled,  until 
quite  lately,  the  life  and  the  literature  of  that 
land.  But  their  day  is  done.  The  ladies  them- 
selves have  gone  to  the  other  extreme.  "  Any- 
thing," said  a  charming  young  person  to  me  in 
Wiesbaden  only  the  other  week,  "  but  a  German 
officer!  Far  rather  an  Englishman,  or  an 
American !  "  None  so  cruel  as  the  ladies  when 
they  cease  to  love ! 

The  country  squire,  too,  whether  in  Prussia 
or  England,  is,  as  a  type,  narrow  to  a  degree. 
Remember  Galsworthy's  "  Country  House,"  and 
Sudermann's  "  Es  War."  Note  the  grim, 
wooden-headed,  closed  ranks  of  the  agrarian 
members  of  the  imperial  parliament  of  Ger- 
many ;  there  you  have  the  type  of  the  Pom- 
merscher  Junker.  Those,  too,  I  know ;  I  was 
brought  up  among  them.  Bismarck  was  the 
supreme  instance  of  that  type ;  his  hugeness  of 
intellectual  bulk  imposed  all  the  vices  and  the 
virtues  of  that  type  upon  his  own  time,  his  own 
people. 

As  a  great  humanist,  Liliencron  is  the  glori- 
ous exception  from  this  generality  of  officer 
and  country  gentleman.  It  is  as  humanist, 
finally,  that  posterity  will  give  him  his  greatest 
renown. 


64  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

THE  natural  note  in  the  poems  of  Liliencron 
startled  an  audience  that  had  long  been  accus- 
tomed to  weak  dilutions  of  what,  in  Goethe  and 
Heine,  had  been  genuine  sentiment.  The  lyrics 
of  the  day  were  written  in  lavender  water. 
With  the  publication  of  his  "  Adj  utantenritte  " 
(Rides  of  an  Adjutant)  and  the  following  vol- 
umes of  verse,  the  discriminating  few  found 
that  a  new  man  had  come  to  be  reckoned  with. 
Here  was  war  in  all  its  color  and  dirt  and 
tragedy ;  here  was  nature  at  first,  not  third  or 
fourth,  hand;  here  was  love  as  it  had  come  to 
life  and  song  in  the  arms  of  a  flesh-and-blood 
girl,  not  a  lay  figure  patterned  upon  the  formu- 
las of  other  poets.  The  real  poet  writes  life  as 
he  sees  it  and  lives  it;  not  as  the  accumulated 
documents  of  the  centuries  tell  him  he  should 
see  it  and  live  it.  Liliencron  proved,  in  his  very 
first  volumes  of  verse  —  he  was,  as  we  know, 
already  more  than  thirty  years  of  age ;  he  had 
no  youthful  fermentations  about  craft  and  art 
to  bother  him !  —  that  he  was  an  entire  man,  a 
proper  poet.  He  wrote  as  he  lived,  passion- 
ately, vividly.  Here  were  no  echoes  of  other 
men's  inky  emotions.  Here  were  an  evident 
love  for  his  kind,  a  keen  sense  of  beauty,  a  real- 
ization of  his  own  soul's  oneness  with  all  nature, 
a  somewhat  melancholy  irony,  and,  above  all,  a 
robust  masculinity.  Reading  him,  one  forgot 
the  petty  discussions  that  had  been  raging  up 


DETLEV  VON  LILIENCRON         65 

and  down  the  sterile  field  of  German  verse ;  for- 
got whether  he  was  idealist  or  realist,  impres- 
sionist or  naturalist.  He  was  a  man ;  he  sang 
as  a  man. 

The  circles  of  milk-and-lavender  were  natu- 
rally ruffled  by  the  appearances  of  this  new 
poet.  They  called  him  a  noisy  swashbuckler 
with  vine-leaves  in  his  hair.  But  to-day  those 
ruffled  circles  are  forgotten,  and  Liliencron 
lives,  not  only  in  his  own  work,  but  in  the  pres- 
ent generation  of  German  writers,  which  owes 
to  him  whatever  it  has  of  the  masculine,  the  na- 
tional and  the  natural. 

To  readers  who  do  not  read  German  it  is  im- 
possible to  convey  a  notion  of  the  graphic  swift- 
ness of  movement  in  the  early  military  verses 
of  Liliencron.  The  musical  and  dramatic  val- 
ues of  short  words,  and  even  of  syllables,  are 
used  most  effectively.  Sharp,  staccato  strokes 
seem  to  cut  out  for  us  slices  of  breathing,  glow- 
ing life.  Note  these  stanzas  from  the  martial 
"Riickblick": 

"Ziigel  fest,  Fanfarenruf, 
Donnernd  schwappt  der  Rasen. 
Bald  sind  wir  mit  flUchtigem  Huf 
An  den  Feind  geblasen. 

"  Anprall,  Fluch  und  Stoss  und  Hieb, 
Kann  den  Arm  nicht  sparen, 
Wo  mir  Helm  und  Handschuh  blieb 
Hab  ich  nicht  erfahren." 


66  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

and  the  peculiarly  beautiful  lines,  notable  for 
a  surpassing  vividness  compressed  into  the 
briefest  terms  ever  yet  attempted,  I  think,  in 
any  tongue: 


"  Sattelleere,  Sturz  und  Staub, 
Klingenkreuz  und  Scharten, 
Trunken  schwenkt  die  Faust  den  Raub 
Flatternder  Standarten." 


Since  Mr.  Kipling  sang  rather  of  the  bar- 
racks and  departments  of  peace,  than  of  war, 
I  do  not  know  where  to  look  in  English  for 
equivalents  to  the  qualities  Liliencron  showed 
in  his  prose  and  verse  versions  of  war.  In  the 
war  stories  of  Ambrose  Bierce  you  will,  I 
think,  come  nearest  to  the  color  and  the  irony 
in  this  German.  He  gives  us  the  glitter  of  the 
sun  shining  on  the  cavalry  charge,  and  he  also 
gives  us  the  eternal  irony  of  things,  just  as  did 
Bierce  in  his  picture  of  the  splendid  horseman 
riding  splendidly  and  futilely  across  a  bullet- 
pelted  space;  just  as  did  Tennyson  when  he 
sang  of  the  mad  charge  at  Balaclava,  and  just 
as  did  Bernard  Shaw  when  he  declared  in 
"  Arms  and  the  Man  "  that  what  made  a  cer- 
tain cavalryman's  ride  into  apparently  sure 
death  possible  was  not  heroism  but  the  fact  that 
his  horse  was  running  away  with  him.  The 
irony  of  things  was  constant  in  Liliencron,  but 
it  was  an  irony  tinged  with  melancholy,  with 


DETLEV  VON  LILIENCRON          67 

pity.  Never  more  so  than  in  such  lines  as  these, 
describing  just  such  a  cavalry  advance  as  we 
have  had  in  mind  just  now: 

"  Hor  ich  nicht  plotzlich  vor  mir, 
Weit  hinter  dem  Getreideschlag, 
Schwach  wie  aus  einem  Tiilchen  steigend, 
Den  Vorwartsmarsch  ? 
Mein  Stock  pendelt  nicht  mehr; 
Ich  recke  mich, 
Um  iiber  die  leis  im  Winde 
Spielenden  Halmspitzen  zu  schauen. 
Und,  keine  Tauschung  mehr, 
Uber  den  spielenden  Halmspitzen, 
Glitzern  blitzende  Helmspitzen. 
Immer  deutlicher  klingen 
Die  tiirkische  Trommel, 
Die  Becken, 
Die  Tuben, 

Voran,  auf  milchweissem  Hengst, 
Den  purpurne  Ziertroddeln  umtanzen, 
Der  spanischen  Schritt  geht 
Wie  der  Gaul  im  Kiinstreiterzelt, 
Fuhrt  der  Oberst. 

"  Und,  eine  einzige  Linie, 
Folgt  sein  Regiment: 
Im  Gleichschritt, 
Ein  wenig  horbarer 
Den  linken  Fuss  setzend, 
Im  Takt  der  Musik, 
Vor  den  Fiissen 
Das  wachsende  Brot; 
Hinter  den  Fiissen 
Das  zerstampfte  Brot, 
Die  Wiiste. 

Schrecklich  sind  der  Kriegsbestie 
Zerkaucnde  Kiefer; 
Aber  nie  werden  sie  ruhen, 
Solange  der  Menschen  "  verfluchte  Rasse" 
Die  schone  Erde  bevolkert. 
Nur  vorwarts  Grenadiere! 
Kein  Zagetreten! 


68  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

Ihr  verteidigt  das  Vaterland ! 

Uber  euren  aufgepflanzten  Seitengewehren, 

Im  rlicksichtslosen  Angriff 

Schwebt  die  Siegesgottin, 

Hinter  ihnen  her  zieht  schnell  der  Friede. 

Doch  ach,  ist  sein  Triumph 

Der  Triumph  ewiger  Dauer  ?  " 

Now,  as  sheer  pictorial  music  the  fragments 
I  have  quoted  would  stamp  their  author  a  great 
natural  talent  in  any  company.  In  the  four- 
lined  stanzas  we  are  made  to  see  the  tightened 
reins,  hear  the  call  of  the  trumpets  and  the 
thunder  of  the  hoofs.  The  shock  against  the 
enemy's  front,  the  curses  and  the  slashings,  the 
sudden  numbness  of  the  arm,  the  loss,  never 
noticed  till  afterwards,  of  helmet  and  glove. 
Then  the  brief  summing  up:  empty  saddles, 
dust,  collapse;  blades  that  cress  and  clash; 
and  then  the  reeling  victor's  fist,  waving  his 
captured  pennant.  In  the  longer  extract,  we 
are  made  to  share  with  the  looker-on  from  be- 
hind the  corn.  First  the  far  faint  horn  sound- 
ing the  advance;  next,  above  the  shining, 
golden  corn,  the  shining,  golden  helmets;  the 
drums,  and  the  fifes  growing  plainer  and 
plainer.  The  colonel  at  the  head;  his  snow- 
white  stallion  stepping  high  as  if  he  were  a  cir- 
cus horse;  the  whole  regiment,  in  solid,  single 
line,  following,  in  even  step,  the  left  foot  just  a 
touch  more  audible,  in  time  with  the  music. 
Growing  grain  before  them,  ruined  grain  be- 


DETLEV  VON  LILIENCEON         69 

hind  them.  Ah,  the  hideous,  greedy  jaws  of  the 
devil  of  war,  that  will  never  cease  from  grinding 
as  long  as  this  accursed  human  race  of  ours 
lives  on  this  lovely  earth !  On  with  you,  grena- 
diers !  No  hesitating !  You  are  your  father- 
land's defenders !  Above  your  arms  the  goddess 
of  war  sails  in  the  sky;  and  in  your  wake  flies 
triumphant  peace.  But  oh,  that  triumph,  is  it 
a  triumph  that  will  last  ? 

THE  only  poet  who  in  English  achieved  sim- 
ilar effects  of  direct  sensation,  who  seemed  to 
cut  slices  straight  out  of  the  actual  and  serve 
them  to  you  lyrically  was  William  Ernest  Hen- 
ley, whose  "  In  Hospital "  verses  have  much 
that  both  for  manner  and  matter  are  close  to 
the  battle-piece  last  quoted. 

Of  Liliencron's  military  songs  the  most  pop- 
ular was  always  his  "  Die  Musik  Kommt,"  which 
is  as  if  you  said  "  Here  comes  the  band."  No 
wonder  that  in  the  days  of  the  Uberbrettl'  it 
was  hummed  and  sung  all  over  Germany.  I 
shall  here  only  sketch  these  stanzas  for  you. 
They  describe,  in  syllables  that  actually  set  your 
feet  to  marching,  the  passing  of  the  regimental 
music.  First  we  hear  the  cymbals,  then  the 
great  horn,  the  piccolo,  the  drums,  the  flute, 
and  all  the  other  instruments ;  and  then,  in  all 
his  finery  of  glittering  sword  and  uniform,  the 
captain.  And  then,  again,  the  other  officers. 


70  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

To  each  a  merry,  graphic  stanza.  Then  the 
privates;  the  whole  regiment;  their  solid 
steady  step  shaking  street-lamps  and  window- 
panes.  And  then  the  girls.  Their  heads  from 
windows,  doors  and  alleys;  their  eyes  so  blue; 
their  hair  so  golden;  they  look  and  look  and 
look,  and  —  gone  is  the  music !  The  wonder- 
ful, sweetly,  human,  truly  lyric  last  stanza  de- 
fies my  clumsy  touch: 

"  Klingling,  tschingtsching  und  Paukencrach, 
Noch  aus  der  Feme  tont  es  schwach, 
Ganz  leise  bumbumbumbum  tsching, 
Zog  da  ein  bunter  Schmetterling, 
Tschingtsching,  bum,  um  die  Ecke?  " 

Can  you  not  hear  the  very  diminuendo  of  drum 
and  cymbals,  see  the  stream  of  gay  color  get- 
ting fainter  and  fainter?  Until  at  last  you, 
too,  wonder:  Was  that  a  colored  butterfly 
went,  zing,  boom,  round  the  corner? 

IT  was  the  mood  of  the  careless  cavalier,  in 
which  such  a  song  as  "  Bruder  Liederlich  "  was 
written,  that  gained  Liliencron  the  worser  sort 
of  "  wine,  woman  and  song  "  reputation  in  the 
ranks  of  the  dying  opposition.  I  wish  I  could 
give  but  the  gist  of  that  ballad  of  a  gay  dog 
who  fought,  and  drank,  and  loved,  wherever, 
whenever  he  could ;  who  found  a  girl  for  his 
delight,  and  gave  her  much  delight  for  hers; 
but,  like  the  fickle  cavalier  he  was,  grew  tired, 


DETLEV  VON  LILIENCRON          71 

and  sent  her  on  her  way ;  and  —  wished  to  God 
he  had  her  still,  and  wished  to  God  he  could 
forget,  and  "  Pass  the  wine,  and  —  shuffle  the 
cards !  " 

But  it  is  futile  to  do  other  than  quote  him  in 
the  original,  and  since  space  forbids  that,  the 
briefest  reviews  must  serve.  He  sang  as  much 
of  love  and  of  nature  as  of  things  martial,  and, 
whatever  he  touched  in  his  singing,  you  forgot 
manner,  and  heard  the  matter  of  it  going  di- 
rectly into  your  heart.  The  ability  to  express 
the  individual  impression  was  peculiarly  his. 
You  felt,  always,  that  it  was  a  battle  he  had 
seen,  a  girl  he  had  kissed,  of  which  he  sang  to 
you,  not  of  some  lithographed  melodramatic 
moment  or  some  model  Daphnis  or  Chloe.  In 
his  "  Nach  dem  Ball  "  you  can  almost  smell  the 
violets,  see  the  tired  eyes  of  the  little  countess 
sleeping  on  his  shoulder. 

The  actual  tone  of  life,  that  was  what  he 
always  gave  us,  and  it  was  because  he  was  al- 
ways more  the  lover  of  life  than  anything  else. 
He  was  the  first  artist  in  almost  two  generations 
who  was  not  a  mere  literary  man,  but  man. 
The  literary  man  never  showed  through  his 
work ;  here  was  nothing  of  the  abstract  acad- 
emician to  whom  all  things  human  are  vile; 
here  was  a  plain,  hearty  German  personality: 
an  officer,  baron,  country  gentleman,  with  all 
the  peculiar  qualities  and  defects  of  his  class. 


72  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

This  was  so  plain,  so  simple  an  individual,  so 
genuine  a  character,  that  he  was  more  inclined 
to  apologize  for  babbling  of  his  emotions  in 
verse,  than  of  parading  himself  as  poet.  Those 
who  had  immediately  preceded  him  had  twit- 
tered politely  of  love  in  the  abstract;  he  con- 
fessed in  rhyme  his  love  for  a  definite  lady. 
They  had  set  up  wax  figures  and  asked  us  to 
admire  them ;  Liliencron,  out  of  actual  experi- 
ence, out  of  life,  simply  and  sweetly  sang  to  us, 
and  it  is  to  the  credit  of  the  present  genera- 
tion that,  before  he  died,  they  had  come  to 
know  the  difference  between  his  spontaneous 
singing,  with  its  living  reality,  and  the 
pumped-up  pattern-mongering  of  his  predeces- 
sors. 

BEYOND  the  poetry  Liliencron's  work  ex- 
pressed itself  in  several  volumes  of  drama,  and 
short  stories.  Those  of  the  latter  which  deal 
with  his  army  experiences  are  to  be  counted 
with  the  best  in  that  sort  anywhere,  with  the 
pictures  of  war  that  De  Maupassant  in  France, 
Verestchagin  in  Russia,  and  Bierce  in  America, 
have  produced.  In  a  posthumous  collection  of 
his  stories  that  I  happened  on  in  Nieder-Lahn- 
stein,  on  the  Rhine,  just  about  a  year  after  his 
death,  I  found  one  called  "  Der  Alte  Wacht- 
meister"  that  made  me  think  sharply  of  the 
late  Henry  Irving  in  Conan  Doyle's  play  of 


DETLEV  VON  LILIENCEON         73 

"  Waterloo."  In  the  same  volume,  which  was 
called  simply  "  Letzte  Ernte  "  (Last  Harvest) 
was  another  story,  of  tragedy  unrelieved  by 
any  "  happy  "  ending,  that  gave  a  vivid  pic- 
ture of  the  North  Sea's  last  devastating  inva- 
sion of  the  Dutch  dikes.  I  recall  this  story 
particularly  because  its  conclusion  parallels 
that  of  the  Liliencron  story  that  I  consider  his 
most  characteristic  bit  of  prose.  This  was  one 
in  the  collection  of  "  Kriegsnovellen "  (War 
Tales)  which  ended  with  an  unusual  dramatic 
surprise. 

A  German  division  is  in  French  territory; 
the  officers  are  quartered  upon  the  chateau  of 
the  local  French  magnate.  The  German  gen- 
eral asserts  his  commanding  rights  by  paying 
the  most  constant  court  to  the  daughter  of  their 
host,  Fanchette.  The  little  subaltern,  whose 
name  this  story  carries,  has  no  more  food  for 
his  own  adoration  of  Fanchette  than  unlimited 
opportunities  of  noting  his  general's  monopoly 
of  the  young  lady.  Comes  an  actual  skirmish ; 
the  chateau  is  fired  on ;  takes  fire ;  is  instantly 
beyond  saving.  All  escape,  save  Fanchette, 
whose  form  appears  suddenly  at  an  upper  win- 
dow when  the  whole  house  is  a  furnace  all  about 
her.  First  to  make  for  the  desperate  rescue  is 
the  general  himself;  a  rifle  bullet  catches  him 
before  he  has  gone  three  steps ;  catches  him  and 
kills  him.  Then  into  the  blazing  breach  goes 


74  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

the  little  subaltern.  His  arms  seize  Fanchette, 
as  she  sways,  half-fainting  at  the  window. 
There  is  still  time  to  save  her.  And  then,  in- 
stead of  dragging  her  to  safety,  his  lips  devour 
with  mad  kisses  her  throat,  her  lips,  her  eyes, 
her  cheeks  —  until,  with  a  crash,  the  roof,  a 
very  torrent  of  flame,  crashes  upon  the  two, 
mingling  flame  with  flame,  passion  with  pas- 
sion. 

It  is  that  story  of  "  Portepeefaenrich  Scha- 
dius  "  that  makes  me  think  that  Liliencron  was 
right  in  averring  as  he  often  did  to  his  friend 
Bierbaum,  that  he  had  the  talent  for  drama. 
As  far  as  actual  stage  success  goes,  however, 
Liliencron  is  not  to  be  reckoned  a  dramatist. 
A  certain  actual  public  acclaim  did,  on  the 
other  hand,  come  to  him  by  way  of  the  Uber- 
brettl'  movement,  already  referred  to.  Several 
of  his  ballads  and  lyrics  were  sung  into  the  pop- 
ularity of  the  street,  as  well  as  of  the  library, 
in  this  fashion;  and  a  definite  start  to  his 
never  more  than  slight  prosperity  was  thus 
given  him.  He  was  one  of  the  ten  poets  even- 
tually chosen  to  represent  the  literature  of  this 
movement  in  the  little  collection  of  "  Deutsche 
Chansons,"  published  in  1901 ;  the  others  were 
O.  J.  Bierbaum,  Richard  Dehmel,  Arno  Holz, 
Frank  Wedekind,  Ernst  von  Wolzogen,  Rudolf 
Schroder,  A.  W.  Heymel,  Ludwig  Finckh,  and 
Gustav  Falke. 


DETLEV  VON  LILIENCRON         75 

SUCH  a  poet,  such  a  natural,  spontaneous 
singer,  had,  naturally,  no  easy  path  before  him 
in  a  world  as  conventional,  as  womanistic,  as 
philistine  as  that  upon  which  his  voice  first  fell. 
They  said  it  was  wine,  not  art,  that  sang  in 
him ;  they  called  him  a  regimental  light-o'-love. 
But  the  time  came  when  every  other  young 
poet  dedicated  his  first  fruits  to  Liliencron,  who, 
himself  —  and  that  was  the  gist  of  his  secret ! 
—  was  at  sixty  still  the  unquenched  youth. 
And,  at  long  last,  came  a  pension  from  the  em- 
peror, in  whose  character,  by  the  way,  deter- 
mined flattery  might  discover  a  trait  or  two  of 
Liliencron.  That,  to  be  sure,  would  explain  the 
imperial  appreciation  as  no  more  than  a  sop  to 
self-esteem.  All  the  first  efforts  to  interest 
potentates  and  powers  in  the  man  who  as  sol- 
dier and  singer  had  done  so  much  for  Germany, 
failed.  Liliencron,  disgusted,  wrote  to  Bier- 
baum,  after  one  of  those  failures :  "  An  English 
baronet  or  an  American  pork  king  would  be 
less  ignoble  than  that.  .  .  ."  To  the  poet,  even 
more  than  to  our  average,  you  see,  distance 
lends  enchantment;  it  is  just  as  well  this  poet's 
belief  in  foreign  captains  of  industry  was  never 
put  to  the  test.  That  first,  unsuccessful,  effort 
was  made  in  the  days  of  Pan,  the  sumptuous 
magazine  which  Bierbaum  dominated.  Count 
Harry  Kessler  drew  Count  Kuno  Moltke's  at- 
tention to  Liliencron's  straitened  circum- 


76  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

stances,  and  the  latter  put  the  case  before  the 
emperor.  But  for  neither  him,  nor  the  simi- 
larly situated  Ernst  von  Wildenbruch,  was  the 
time  ripe.  Time  and  again  this  great  poet,  to 
whom  posterity  must  always  date  back  the  mod- 
ern revival  of  literature  in  Germany,  lived  daily 
on  a  couple  of  eggs,  some  milk,  some  coffee, 
and  a  little  grog,  meted  out  to  him  by  the  gen- 
erosity of  a  long  unpaid  landlady. 

He  had  the  soldier's  and  the  minstrel's  scorn 
for  money.  He  drank  it  up  with  his  friends, 
and  he  scattered  it  with  his  kisses.  In  his  loves, 
he  was  no  whit  the  aristocrat  that  he  was  in 
every  other  moment  of  his  life.  In  his  writing 
he  was  as  much  the  singer  of  the  ego  and  its 
experiences  as  was  Nietzsche ;  but  when  he  went 
among  the  girls  his  romantic  nature  played  him 
the  most  fantastically  democratic  tricks.  He 
saw  a  princess  in  a  chambermaid,  and  many  a 
scullery  wench  served  his  muse  in  lieu  of  a 
countess.  Well ;  these  things  are  not  so  aston- 
ishing to  the  person  who  recalls  his  Theophile 
Gautier.  Once,  in  Munich,  Liliencron  did  ac- 
tually engage  in  an  affair  with  a  lady  whom 
he  persuaded  himself  was  a  princess ;  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  she  was  only  a  lady-in-waiting.  But 
these  are  merely  trifling  details  in  the  figure  of 
the  man ;  I  cite  them  only  to  prove,  once  again, 
the  inextinguishable  child  in  him. 

Liliencron    expressed,    as    no    other    since 


DETLEV  VON  LILIENCRON          77 

Goethe,  the  oneness  of  nature  and  the  individ- 
ual. He  brought  freshness  and  genuineness 
into  a  land  that  had  forgotten  both. 

LILIENCEON  died  the  22d  of  July,  1909.  For 
the  memorial  services  held  the  6th  of  October 
of  that  year  in  the  Artists'  House  in  Dresden, 
Otto  Julius  Bierbaum  wrote  some  beautiful 
words  of  which  I  am  now  to  try  to  give  you  a 
notion : 

"  Assembled  here  in  memory  of  Detlev  von 
Liliencron,  we  are  gathered  together  not  in  the 
sign  of  death,  but  the  sign  of  life.  .  .  .  Lilien- 
cron not  only  fulfilled  his  individual  activity,  but 
fructified  the  whole  wide  field  in  which  he 
worked.  He  lives  not  only  in  his  works,  he  lives 
on  in  the  spirit  of  all  modern  German  art.  We 
can  cry,  with  the  French  royalists  of  old :  Lilien- 
cron is  dead,  Long  live  Liliencron !  .  .  .  Not 
that  with  Liliencron  passed  the  master  of  any 
school,  or  that  he  set  up  any  poetic  formulas 
for  posterity ;  to  assert  that  would  be  an  insult 
to  his  very  personality  and  admission  of  inabil- 
ity to  appreciate  his  work.  With  Nietzsche 
Liliencron  had  the  greatest  influence  on  the 
poetic  energies  of  our  time;  but  that  was  no 
influence  of  one  who  invented  new  systems.  He 
had  the  faculty  of  carrying  his  own  personal 
force  over  upon  others,  of  stimulating  others  to 
be  their  most  natural  selves.  He  had,  in  the 


78  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

highest  degree,  that  '  virtue  of  giving,'  Niet- 
zsche's own:  the  gift  of  giving  himself.  .  .  . 
The  human  genius  in  Liliencron  was  greater 
than  its  poetic  expression.  But  for  that,  we 
could  have  put  Liliencron  into  line  with  such  as 
Byron.  .  .  . 

"  Let  us  not  classify  or  catalog.  Liliencron 
is  still  too  close  to  us,  for  us  to  determine  his 
place  among  the  immortals.  But  he  lives;  so 
much  we  feel  sure  of,  now  that  his  mortal  part 
has  left  us.  It  is  an  artist's  death  that  reveals 
for  us,  mysteriously,  as  with  a  sudden  illumina- 
tion, whether  indeed  we  possess  of  his  any  last- 
ing heritage,  or  whether  he  simply  gave  us,  from 
time  to  time,  fragments  that  entertained  us  for 
those  moments.  ...  So  it  was  we  realized,  as 
we  heard  of  Liliencron's  death,  that  not  just 
this  or  that  work  of  his  would  go  on  living, 
but  to  a  certain  extent  he  himself  in  his  entirety. 
Time  will  doubtless  discard  this  or  that  book  of 
his,  in  which  his  real  essence  did  not  properly 
lie  (as,  for  instance,  in  his  last  novel),  but  the 
unique  phenomenon  Liliencron,  in  which  the  per- 
sonal is  as  characteristic  and  valuable  as  the 
artistic,  will  not  be  easily  expunged. 

"  All  efforts  to  retouch  for  this  or  that  pur- 
pose the  picture,  the  autobiography  of  Lilien- 
cron, must  always  fail.  The  wonderful  and 
unique  thing  about  him  is  that,  compact  of  ap- 
parent opposites,  he  was  so  complete.  ...  It 


DETLEV  VON  LILIENCRON          79 

would  be  as  futile  as  fatuous  to  exalt  in  Lilien- 
cron  only  the  patriotic  soldier,  and  evade  the 
fact  that  there  was  a  good  slice  of  Bohemia  in 
him :  much  light-heartedness,  and  a  certain  lack 
of  scruples.  But  it  would  be  unjust  to  be  blind 
to  the  grave  depths  that  were  under  all  this 
lightness.  ...  It  is  easily  intelligible  why  the 
most  known  and  best  beloved  of  his  poems  are 
those  that  voice  the  joy  of  living.  Yet  he  was 
never  a  mere  merry  dog;  he  always  held  life 
to  be  combat  rather  than  pleasaunce,  and  few 
men  were  so  constantly  mindful  of  death's  eter- 
nal vigil  everywhere.  Yet  that  was  not  the  re- 
sult of  his  having  looked  death  in  the  eye  upon 
the  battlefield:  it  was  not  the  soldier,  but  the 
poet  Liliencron,  who  knew  so  wondrous  much  of 
death.  Twice  in  one  poem  in  his  earliest  book 
of  verse  you  find  the  line,  '  One  of  these  hours 
thou  diest,'  and  more  than  once  he  repeated  that 
to  me,  as  we  came  out  of  the  Rathskeller,  and 
looked  up  at  old  Peter.  When  in  my  presence 
he  first  saw  the  snow-capped  chain  of  the  Alps, 
he  exclaimed :  '  That  confounded  old  fellow 
there  with  the  death's-head  and  the  long  beard 
is  winking  at  me.  "  Isn't  your  time  about  up, 
my  lord  baron?  Time  you  let  me  kiss  you?  " 
Then  he  asked  me  the  name  of  that  mountain. 
When  I  replied  at  a  venture :  '  Perhaps  it's  the 
Wild  Emperor,'  the  name  sent  him  into  ecsta- 
sies, and  he  never  afterwards  addressed  the 


80  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

mountain  as  anything  but  Your  Majesty. 
Many  years  later,  in  Hamburg,  he  reminded 
me  of  it  all,  concluding  with  '  A  veritable  death's 
head  he  had.'  It  would  not  have  disturbed  his 
fancy  in  the  least  had  I  told  him  that  it  was  not 
the  Wild  Emperor  at  all. 

"  Who  knows  Liliencron's  verses  knows  how 
familiar  the  picture  of  death  was  to  him.  He 
saw  him  in  the  eyes  of  the  coursing  greyhound, 
saw  him  as  a  fashionable  viveur  with  a  monocle, 
saw  him  as  a  skeleton  wrestling  with  an  ape  for 
a  laurel  wreath,  saw  him  as  gravedigger,  saw 
him  as  commodore  with  a  clay  pipe  in  his  mouth, 
saw  him  as  a  Viennese  fop  —  saw  him  every- 
where and  always  as  the  great  change-artist  of 
life.  .  .  . 

"  No,  this  was  not  a  mere  merry  dog.  His 
call  was  a  battle  call;  not  only  joy,  but  grim 
determination  was  in  it.  ...  And  we  must  not 
forget  who  fought  against  him  in  his  battle. 
To  use  his  own  phrase,  it  was  His  Excellency  the 
Philistine.  Not  that  Liliencron  himself  did  not 
have  his  touches  of  philistinism ;  he  had  not 
been  so  complete  a  man,  so  complete  a  poet,  had 
he  lacked  appreciation  of  that  side  of  life.  .  .  . 
But  he  did  not  let  His  Excellency  down  him. 
It  simply  came  to  this :  the  *  ironist  of  life  '  — 
a  trait  of  Goethe  that  was  his  from  the  very 
start  of  life  —  led  him  occasionally  to  wear  a 
mask  in  the  presence  of  His  Excellency.  Lilien- 


DETLEV  VON  LILIENCRON         81 

cron's  letters,  when  they  are  published,  will 
show  how  completely  he  was  what  Goethe  called 
a  Nature.  And  that  the  philistines  despise. 

"  Well  for  us  that  this  nature  has  passed  on 
into  German  poetry !  Well,  that  this  dead  man 
lives !  .  .  .  None  so  encouraged  us  to  be  of  the 
living,  and  so  taught  us  to  love  the  living,  as 
Liliencron. 

"  That,  before  all,  we  will  keep  of  him :  the 
living!" 


VI 

OTTO    EEICH    HARTLEBEN 

OTTO  ERICH  HARTLEBEN  was  one  with  Lilien- 
cron  in  his  succeeding  most  with  military  sub- 
jects, though  he  did  not  there  draw  from  actual 
experience.  In  worship  of  Goethe,  as  expressed 
in  his  "  Breviary,"  he  was  close  to  Bierbaum, 
and  slight  though  his  actual  artistic  achieve- 
ments were,  the  best  of  them  were  such  natural- 
ness as  the  old  Privy  Councillor  would  have 
liked.  Chiefly,  Hartleben  was  an  artist  who 
tried  to  please,  to  make  you  smile.  He  was  the 
troubadour  as  much  in  his  anecdotes  —  his  short 
stories  were  seldom  more  than  elaborated  anec- 
dotes —  as  in  his  verses ;  he  improvised  charm- 
ingly, inconsequently,  for  the  general  delight. 
It  cannot  be  said  of  him,  as  of  Liliencron,  that 
anything  survives  from  him ;  but  he  unfailingly 
gave  pleasure  while  he  lived.  And  he  remained, 
from  first  to  last,  amazingly  the  child,  as  you 
shall  see.  The  man,  the  temperament,  interest 
me,  at  any  rate,  even  more  than  the  work  he  did, 
which,  at  best,  was  of  the  most  fragile  texture. 
Beyond  the  German  borders  nothing  of 
Hartleben's  was  strong  enough  to  pass;  his 
82 


OTTO  ERICH  HARTLEBEN          83 

greatest  success,  the  military  comedy  "  Rosen- 
montag,"  though  performed  on  Irving  Place,  in 
New  York,  had  no  appeal  to  other  than  the 
German  intelligence. 

Hartleben's  right  among  the  troubadours 
rests  chiefly,  I  think,  upon  his  absolute  devotion 
to  the  practice  of  Martin  Luther's  trinity. 
Wine,  woman  and  song  very  literally  fulfilled 
his  life.  He  sang  truly  enough  from  actual  ex- 
perience of  the  wine-cup  and  the  ladies ;  upon 
that  detail  of  genuinely  expressed  experience 
he  was  one  with  the  crew  of  young  radicals  of 
1885  in  their  revolt  against  the  namby-pamby 
tunes  of  the  interim  poetasters.  It  was,  indeed, 
his  too  great  passion  for  drinking  the  cup  of 
life,  not  to  say  the  actual  wine-cup,  to  its  dregs, 
that  brought  him  so  early  to  his  grave.  He  died 
February  11,  1905,  at  forty  years  of  age. 

Hartleben  was  born  the  third  of  June,  1864, 
in  Clausthal,  in  the  Harz  Mountain  region  of 
Hanover.  His  parents  were  from  a  generation 
of  small  government  officials.  Even  at  school 
humor  and  irreverence  were  his  most  definite 
marks.  He  was  to  study  law  in  Berlin  and 
Tubingen ;  he  even  came  to  the  practice  of 
criminal  law  in  Magdeburg;  but  then  he  could 
stand  it  no  longer ;  he  determined  upon  the  ca- 
reer of  pen  and  ink.  He  wrote  that  decision 
to  his  grandfather,  who  had  been  making  him 
an  allowance.  The  old  gentleman  was  sore 


84  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

troubled;  literature  and  poverty  had  always 
been  identical  terms  to  him.  "  He  thought  he 
would  influence  me  through  my  love  of  ease, 
and  wrote  thus :  '  Yes  —  but  —  if  you  want  to 
go  to  Berlin  and  go  in  for  writing,  I'll  not  send 
you  three  hundred  marks  a  month  any  longer, 
but  only  one  hundred  —  if  you  want  to  risk 
that  .  .  .?'  Well,  I  risked  it."  In  Berlin  he 
was  quickly  in  the  radical  current,  a  member  of 
the  Friedrichshagen  circle,  mentioned  earlier  in 
these  pages.  He  came  often  to  Munich,  and 
one  of  the  most  vivid  sketches  of  him  at  that 
time  has  been  given  us  by  Hermann  Bahr,  the 
Viennese  journalist  and  playwright,  with  whose 
name  and  work,  at  long  last,  the  English  peoples 
have,  within  this  twelvemonth,  become  so  famil- 
iar. 

"  Coming  to  Munich  in  the  month  of  March," 
wrote  Bahr,  "  you  will  one  fine  day  find  the 
whole  town,  usually  so  easy-going  and  leisurely, 
suffering  from  the  greatest  excitement.  That 
is  the  day  the  season's  brew  of  Salvator  beer  is 
tapped.  .  .  .  That  day  the  good  citizens  are  all 
in  haste  and  hurry,  anxious,  nervous  lest  they 
miss  something  of  the  great  occasion.  The 
other  side  of  Munich,  the  artistic  side,  also  feels 
the  emotion.  ...  It  streams  to  the  railway 
station,  to  await  the  train  from  Berlin,  because 
it  knows:  to-day  they  tap  the  Salvator,  there- 
fore to-day  Otto  Erich  Hartleben  arrives ;  that 


OTTO  ERICH  HAETLEBEN          85 

is  nothing  less  than  a  custom  of  the  country. 
When  the  Berlin  train  steams  in,  one  of  the  win- 
dows shows  a  massive,  jovial  gentleman,  re- 
sembling a  typical  elderly  student  out  of  the 
Fliegende  Blaetter.  He  alights ;  his  greetings 
have  a  certain  hurried  and  impatient  heartiness ; 
valuable  time  is  going  on  —  time  in  which  one 
might  be  at  that  noble  brew.  Not  until  he  is 
on  the  spot  itself,  his  pince-nez  removed  so  that 
his  devotions  may  be  disturbed  by  no  vision  of 
mere  mundane  things,  raptly  and  solemnly  sip- 
ping the  dark  and  gentle  nectar  —  not  until 
then  does  he  unbosom  himself  to  friendship. 
Then  it  matters  little  what  he  says ;  his  emo- 
tions just  stream  from  him  loud  and  unchecked." 

His  health  eventually  forbade  continuation  of 
his  too  great  joy  in  living.  He  moved  to  Salo, 
on  Lake  Garda;  built  a  villa  there,  and  meant 
to  make  it  a  rallying  point  for  German  art,  but 
died  too  soon  for  that. 

Wine  and  sunshine,  the  sunshine  of  success, 
and  of  the  love  of  women,  were  everything  to 
this  troubadour.  Upon  wine  and  sunshine,  in- 
terpreted literally,  he  once  declared  himself 
philosophically,  with  an  ingenious  and  yet  ro- 
mantic rationalism.  Upon  the  question  why  the 
sun  did  its  business  so  much  better  south  of  the 
Brenner  Pass  than  north,  he  declared  to  Bier- 
baum,  that  the  difference  was  in  us,  not  in  the 
sun.  Virtue  was  not  in  the  wine  itself,  but  in 


86  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

the  "  grace  of  the  South  " ;  a  mystic  phenome- 
non that  came  to  all  who,  having  obeyed  the 
kindly  invitation  of  the  sun,  had  shaken  the  dust 
of  conquering  Germany  from  their  shoes. 
Which  is  not  unidentical  with  Nietzsche's  "  in- 
nocence of  the  South." 

IN  his  art  Hartleben,  as  we  have  seen,  was  at 
first  a  rebel  with  the  other  rebels.  His  career 
showed  a  gradual  weakening  of  the  radical  in 
him,  an  acceptance  of  things  as  they  were,  of 
the  success  and  comfort  to  be  had  from  them. 
He  was  one  of  the  best  anecdotists  that  ever 
lived;  he  had  the  most  intimate  charm  in  tale- 
telling;  he  was  a  pleasant,  entertaining  fellow 
who  buttonholed  you  and  amused  you  with  his 
own  adventures.  But  he  never  passed  beyond 
the  sphere  of  entertainment.  His  talent  for 
caricature  and  parody  never  hurt  the  victims 
much;  he  always  gave  his  readers  the  notion 
that  not  they,  but  the  other  people,  were  his 
targets.  He  drew  you  to  the  closest  intimacy, 
so  that  you  listened,  fascinated,  to  his  anec- 
dotes about  himself  and  —  the  others.  It  was 
this  solution  of  his  personality  into  his  work 
that  gives  his  career  value. 

Personality  is  seldom  permitted  intrusion 
into  what  is  to-day  written  in  English.  If  it 
were,  we  might  have  something  else  than  a  Bar- 
mecide feast  for  Brahmins. 


OTTO  ERICH  HARTLEBEN         87 

Hartleben's  satire  was  essentially  German. 
In  his  earliest  days  he  satirized  the  old  romantic 
conception  of  poetry  and  poets ;  proclaimed 
that  the  razor  and  clean  clothes  were  as  neces- 
sary in  Bohemia  as  in  Philistia.  Under  his  sat- 
ire he  felt,  too,  the  mystery  and  melancholy  of 
life;  the  romantic  and  the  antique  fascination 
of  Italy  were  to  have  for  his  later  life  as  great 
appeal  as  they  had  for  Goethe  in  one  generation 
and  Bierbaum  in  our  own ;  but  for  the  most 
part  he  was  content  to  fuse  that  mystery  and 
melancholy  in  wine.  His  greater  emotions 
rarely  came  to  artistic  expression.  He  tired 
easily ;  played  dilettante ;  sold  his  artistic 
birthright  for  a  mess  of  royalties.  There  was 
not  much  art  in  his  comedy  "  Rosenmontag," 
but  it  became  one  of  the  great  hits  of  its 
year,  1900,  and  brought  him  a  considerable 
fortune,  as  such  things  go  in  Germany.  Nor 
was  there  anything  of  experience  in  that 
play;  only  when  experience  went  into  his 
verse  or  his  stories  did  they  have  artistic 
value. 

His  youthfully  insurgent  spirit,  so  soon  to 
disappear,  was  vividly  expressed  in  two  stanzas 
written  in  Berlin  in  1885: 


"Die  jubelnd  nie  den  tibersohaumten  Becher 
Gehoben  in  der  heiligen  Mitternaeht, 
Und  denen  nie  ein  dunkles  Madchenauge, 
Zur  Siinde  lockend,  spriihend  zugelacht  — 


88  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

"  Die  nie  den  ernsten  Tand  der  Welt  vergassen 
Und  freudig  nie  dem  Strudel  sich  vertraut  — 

0  sie  sind  klug,  sie  bringen's  weit  im  Leben.  .  .  . 
Ich  kann  nicht  sagen,  wie  mir  davor  graut ! " 

Which,  that  you  may  gather  its  gist,  if  letting 
the  poetry  in  it  escape,  might  be  rendered: 

Who  never  held  the  flowing  cup  on  high 
In  holy  midnight's  merriest  din; 
Who  never  felt  a  laughing  woman's  eyes 
Move  them  to  laughter  and  to  sin; 

Who  never  let  the  solemn  world  go  hang; 
Whom  none  e'er  called  "  Poor,  careless  Dick ! "  — 
Oh,  these  are  wise,  they  will  go  far  in  life.  .  .  . 

1  cannot  tell  you  how  they  make  me  sick! 

That  was  to  be  the  note  of  his  lyric  art.  The 
best  of  his  singing  did  follow  that  note.  There 
were  valuable  social  pictures  like  the  "  Konfir- 
mationskleid  " ;  and  the  early  "  Gottvertrauen 
zum  Bayonett  "  had  excellent  and  hearty  satire 
in  it.  He  contrasts  the  affectation  for  the  an- 
tique idols  of  art  with  the  conditions  of  domestic 
and  civic  morality  in  Germany,  and  repeats  his 
"  put  your  trust  in  bayonets  "  in  most  deli- 
cious irony.  The  opening  stanza,  too,  repeated 
his  insurgent  scheme  of  song: 

"O  Muse!  —  Ja:    ich  liebe  meine  Muse. 
Es  ist  ein  schones  Weib  und  Jung  an  Jahren! 
Nicht  allegorish  und  abstract  confuse, 
Sie  schaut  mich  an  rait  Augen  braun  und  klaren. 
Sie  redet  zu  den  Mannern  in  her  Blouse, 
Wie  auch  zu  denen  die  auf  Gummi  fahren, 
Und  tragt  nicht  blaue  Strumpfe,  sondern  keine, 
Denn  sie  ist  stolz  auf  ihre  weissen  Beine." 


OTTO  ERICH  HAETLEBEN          89 

Which  charming  hit  against  the  ineffectual 
spinelessness  that  the  men  of  1885  tried  to 
abolish,  I  have  put  into  this  lame  English : 

My  Muse !  —  Indeed  I  love  her  with  a  passion 
To  suit  her  lovely  figure  and  her  youthful  years! 
She  has  no  allegoric,  abstract  fashion 
Of  loving,  and  her  eyes  can  fill  with  real  tears; 
She  is  for  those  who  work,  and  walk,  as  well  as 
For  those  who  ride  on  rubber  all  their  life.    She  begs 
To  wear  nor  blue,  nor  hose  at  all  —  to  tell  us 
How  finely  proud  she  is  of  her  white,  well-formed 
legs. 

LYRICALLY,  Hartleben  went  farthest  in  inten- 
tion rather  than  performance.  His  song  seldom 
went  beyond  mild  emotional  evocations  of 
Heine.  Even  in  such  a  piece  of  description  as 
that  of  the  fortress  of  Franzensfeste,  on  the 
Brenner  descent  into  Italy,  "  the  gate  of 
spring,"  as  the  poet  called  it,  there  were  touches 
of  the  banale. 

He  tried  paraphrases  from  the  French,  ren- 
dering some  of  the  Pierrot  poems  of  Albert 
Giraud  with  considerable  virtue.  But  it  was 
not  until  he  wrote  his  "  Story  of  the  Torn-off 
Button  "  that  he  had  popular  success. 

It  is  hard,  in  considering  this  and  the  other 
elaborated  anecdotes  that  display  him  as  tale- 
teller, to  imagine  a  reputation  being  based  on 
them.  The  prevailing  short  stories  in  German 
must  indeed  have  been  stilted,  rococo,  or  sex- 
less, if  such  thin  fun  as  this  could  win  acclaim. 


90  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

It  was,  once  again,  undoubtedly  the  hearty 
masculine  note  that  did  the  trick.  The  robust 
forthrightness  in  these  tales  is  undeniable ;  they 
have  the  air  of  the  smoking-room  story  but 
slightly  pruned  for  polite  usage.  There  is  an 
insufficiently  known  Englishman,  Arthur  Bim- 
stead,  who  writes  just  like  that  —  perhaps  bet- 
ter !  —  for  the  Sporting  Times  in  London.  And 
I  dare  say  the  London  Olympiad  would  pretend 
never  to  have  heard  of  him.  Such  are  the  amus- 
ing contrasts  in  literary  fortune.  Allow  me, 
pertinent  to  this  apparent  digression,  to  point 
out  again  what  happened  to  German  literature 
when  the  academical,  professorial,  too-too  liter- 
ary cliques  tried  to  exclude  nature  and  human- 
ity from  it.  You  can  no  more  say  of  literature 
in  general,  than  of  poetry  in  particular,  what 
it  is,  or  what  it  must  be. 

What  lifted  the  just  mentioned  story  into 
vitality  was  its  sketch  of  the  heroine,  Lore.  A 
light-living,  fun-loving  type,  such  as  every 
large  urban  centre  has  in  thousands.  No  mor- 
als to  mention ;  much  skill  in  managing  men ; 
a  born  liar,  with  a  gift  of  deluding  herself  as 
well  as  the  others.  An  arrant  little  snob,  but 
childishly  naive  about  it.  You  may  find  the 
type  at  many  a  telephone  or  typewriter  or  mani- 
cure-desk in  New  York ;  in  many  of  the  bound- 
ary provinces  between  domesticity  and  the  half- 
world  in  any  modern  capital.  Schnitzler  gave 


OTTO  ERICH  HARTLEBEN          91 

us  the  same  type  in  the  heroine  of  "  Abschieds 
Souper,"  which  Charlotte  Wiehe  played  to 
English  audiences  in  French  as  "  Souper 
d'Adieu." 

She  dowered  all  her  male  friends  with  titles; 
just  as  the  little  soubrette  in  America  turns 
her  "  toughest "  admirer  into  "  a  swell  guy 
from  Wall  Street,"  and  the  little  French 
cocotte  persuades  herself  that  the  most 
obvious  rasta'  from  Brazil  is  a  Russian  grand 
duke. 

Into  what  he  wrote  of  Lore,  in  one  story 
after  another,  though  least  of  all  in  the  play 
he  contrived  of  her,  Hartleben  put  so  much 
nai've  self-confession  that  the  result  had  all  the 
effect  of  the  most  intimate  revelation.  Indeed, 
it  would  be  hard  to  equal  Hartleben  as  a  prat- 
tler. He  just  went  yarning  on,  in  the  cheeriest, 
j oiliest  way;  his  little  stories  were  full  of  pi- 
quant little  scenes,  essentially  redolent  of  the 
German  frankness  in  many  things  that  we  pre- 
tend hesitations  about;  and  his  irony  played 
wittily  with  many  an  idol  cherished  both  in 
Philistia  and  Bohemia.  He  was  of  those  who 
invented  the  "  Serenissimus "  type,  that  has 
now  for  many  years  contributed  to  the  laugh- 
ter of  all  who  understand  the  German  tongue. 
"  Serenissimus  "  is  the  type  of  divinely  stupid 
potentate  or  official,  whose  intelligence  is  even 
smaller  than  his  kingdom.  All  the  too  rigid 


92  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

conventions  of  official  and  professional  classes 
moved  Hartleben  to  his  satire. 

CURIOUSLY  enough,  it  was  in  the  theatre,  for 
which  he  did  not  have  nearly  so  spontaneous  a 
gift  as  for  tale-telling,  that  the  greatest  success 
came  to  Hartleben.  In  none  of  his  plays  did  he 
utter  such  genuinely  experienced  emotions  as  in 
his  stories.  Undoubtedly  the  formal  necessities 
of  the  theatre  irked  his  spirit.  Nevertheless, 
despite  the  lesser  sincerity  of  his  work  for  the 
stage,  it  was  that  which  lifted  him  out  of  ob- 
scurity as  artist. 

True  to  his  type  —  truer  then  than  when 
success  came !  —  the  first  time  he  wrote  in 
stage  form  it  was  a  burlesque.  A  burlesque  on 
an  Ibsen  play.  It  was  performed  once,  pri- 
vately, by  college  students.  In  his  next  play, 
"  Angele,"  performed  in  1890,  Hartleben  voiced 
the  then  beginning  period  of  throwing  off  old 
moral  scruples,  of  exalting  the  ego,  of  listening 
to  Nietzsche.  The  play  shocked  the  old  morali- 
ties, while  the  foyer  of  the  theatre  was  full 
of  young  women  congratulating  the  author ;  in 
those  contrasting  lights  you  had  the  temper  of 
the  time  in  Germany.  In  his  two  next  plays, 
"  Die  Erziehung  zur  Ehe  "  and  "  Die  Sittliche 
Forderung,"  Hartleben  proceeded  with  the 
program  of  unmorality.  He  took  an  idea 
of  Sudermann's  and  changed  the  moralitj' 


OTTO  ERICH  HARTLEBEN          93 

until  it  became  what  most  would  call  immoral- 
ity. 

Only  in  "  Hanna  Jagert  "  did  he  reach  any- 
thing like  really  vital  comedy.  This  was,  artis- 
tically, his  high  point.  Here  he  gave  way 
neither  to  caricature,  as  in  his  earlier  pieces, 
nor  to  sheer  theatricals,  as  later.  At  first  the 
piece,  the  characters  in  which  move  through 
socialism  to  aristocracy,  through  an  apparent 
unmorality  to  a  fine  tolerance  of  the  accepted 
moralities,  was  forbidden  by  the  Berlin  censor, 
and  did  not  come  to  performance  until  1893, 
at  the  Lessing  Theatre.  Two  vital  realizations 
figure  in  the  comedy :  that  the  idea  of  socialism 
can  have  permanent  appeal  only  for  humanity 
in  the  mass,  while  for  the  fully  developed  indi- 
vidual there  can  be  no  other  philosophy  than 
an  egoistic  one,  emancipated  from  all  scruples 
of  religion  or  morals.  This  was  only  one  of 
the  many  plays  of  that  period  written  under  the 
sign  of  the  sage  of  Zarathustra.  Its  conclusion, 
however,  admitted  that  a  development,  a  per- 
fection of  the  human  ego,  could  only  come,  after 
all,  through  an  acceptance  of  a  law  as  old  as 
the  centuries ;  through  that  complete  fusing 
of  one  soul  with  another  which  is  the  finest  tri- 
umph of  the  monogamic  system.  The  reason 
"  Hanna  Jagert  "  reached  a  higher  plane  of  art 
than  the  other  pieces  by  Hartleben,  is  that  it 
held  not  merely  artistry,  but  experience.  He 


94  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

himself  had  made  the  traverse  from  socialism 
to  individualism,  from  the  radical  disciple 
of  the  Vorwarts  leadership,  to  intellectual 
anarchy. 

Of  his  other  plays,  which  displayed  more  and 
more  mere  theatricals,  need  be  named  only 
"  Abschied  vom  Regiment  "  and  "  Rosenmon- 
tag."  Both  have  proved  effective  on  the  stage, 
and  the  latter  obtained  the  Grillparzer  Prize 
and  made  its  author's  fortune.  It  became,  as 
such  things  go  in  Germany,  a  sensation  com- 
parable to  that  of  "  Alt  Heidelberg,"  the  suc- 
cess of  which  undoubtedly  had  impelled  Hartle- 
ben,  by  this  time  a  cynic  acceptor  of  things  as 
they  were,  to  say  to  himself:  Oh,  if  that's 
the  sort  of  thing  they  want,  I  can  give  it  to 
them! 

The  one-act  piece,  "  Good-by  to  the  Regi- 
ment," was  artistically  higher  than  "  Rosen- 
montag."  Neither  can  have  much  to  say  to 
English  or  American  minds,  because  based  on 
hard  and  fast  conceptions  of  military  and  cava- 
lier conduct  that  seem  absurd  to  us.  The  final 
tragedy  comes  sheerly  as  a  result  of  the  hero's 
realization  that  —  he  has  broken  his  word  as  an 
officer  and  a  gentleman !  A  reading  of  Schnitz- 
ler*s  famous  little  monologue,  "  Lieutenant 
Gustiy  will  give  you  more  clearly  than  any- 
thing else  the  state  of  mind  in  which  the  Ger- 
man or  Austrian  officer  regards  his  own  word 


OTTO  ERICH  HARTLEBEN          95 

of  honor.  In  the  middle  of  the  merry  carnival 
air  of  Rose-Monday  Hartleben's  hero  and  hero- 
ine die  together,  and  the  comedy  of  music,  of 
uniforms,  of  military  glitter  and  gaiety,  ends 
on  the  grimmest  note  of  tragedy.  Heinrich 
Leopold  Wagner,  a  friend  of  Goethe's  youth, 
had  written  a  play  in  1776  with  a  similar  cen- 
tral idea;  but  Hartleben  gave  it  the  skilful 
touches  of  theatricalism,  of  militarism,  of  con- 
trast between  the  worlds  of  mufti  and  of  regi- 
mentals, that  gained  for  it  popular  acclaim.  It 
was  first  performed  in  1900  and  remains  on  the 
German  boards  to  this  day. 

SUEPASSING  in  value  both  his  artistic  inten- 
tions and  performances,  was  Hartleben's  per- 
sonal, living  expression,  in  himself,  in  his  life, 
of  that  which,  despite  the  sore  mismouthing  that 
our  mob  gives  the  phrase,  we  must  call  the  ar- 
tistic temperament.  His  life  ranks  with  the  lives 
of  many  other  of  the  vagabond  natures  of  other 
times  and  other  countries.  Though  such  an 
individual  note  need  not  be  taken  as  a  type,  yet 
in  the  fact  that  through  all  his  divagations 
from  convention  Hartleben  remained  essen- 
tially German,  you  may  see  what  a  change  has 
come  over  the  Teuton  character  in  general  since 
the  day  when  our  armchair  philosophers  re- 
ferred to  it  as  "  phlegmatic  "  —  and  let  it  go 
at  that. 


96  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

NOTHING  that  has  been  written  or  imagined 
concerning  the  possibilities  of  what  we  call  the 
"  artistic  temperament "  and  the  German  sim- 
ply "  temperament,"  surpasses  for  sheer  naivete 
the  actual  case  of  Otto  Erich  Hartleben.  Not 
the  novels  of  George  Moore,  not  the  "  Brichan- 
teau "  of  Claretie,  nor  the  "  Beloved  Vaga- 
bond "  of  Locke,  nor  the  "  Kraf  t-Mayr "  of 
Von  Wolzogen,  nor,  most  modern  instance, 
"  The  Concert  "  of  Hermann  Bahr. 

Life,  it  is  true,  has  always  made  literature 
look  timid.  Verlaine  opened  the  gulf  that  may 
lie  between  the  devil  and  the  angel  in  one  man 
far  wider  than  did  the  story  of  "  Dr.  Jekyl  and 
Mr.  Hyde  " ;  Oscar  Wilde's  life  was  even  more 
frightful  than  that  of  his  pictured  Thos.  Grif- 
fiths Wainewright;  and  there  are  plenty  of 
other  such  cases.  If  in  Verlaine  the  saint  con- 
stantly opposed  the  sinner,  what  the  case  of 
Hartleben  opens  up  is  that  of  the  imperfectly 
monogamous  disposition  of  the  male  human. 

To  imagine  a  greater,  finer  tolerance  than 
that  of  the  wife  in  "  The  Concert  "  is  hard. 
That  play  settled  in  the  German  countries  the 
reputation  from  which  Bahr  had  suffered  all  his 
career,  of  being,  like  most  of  the  other  Viennese, 
merely  clever.  As  journalist,  critic,  in  almost 
every  capacity  of  the  literary  and  dramatic 
craft  he  had  proved  himself  skilful,  adroit  and 
penetrating;  but  the  colder  men  of  Northern 


OTTO  ERICH  HARTLEBEN          97 

Germany  still  denied  him  the  qualities  of  sin- 
cerity, of  greatness.  Now  that  in  "  The  Con- 
cert "  he  has  shown  such  grip  of  vital  human 
things,  such  talent  not  only  for  sketching  char- 
acter but  for  letting  the  intelligence  and  sim- 
plicity of  real  life  take  the  place  of  old  formu- 
las of  conduct  that  never  existed  outside  the 
theatre,  and  such  a  genius  for  realizing  the 
greatness  to  which  a  wifely  soul  can  rise,  it 
should  be  useless  for  even  his  former  detractors 
to  deny  him  consideration.  The  play,  as  we 
know,  approaches  its  second  season  on  the  Ger- 
man stage;  when  I  saw  it  this  last  September 
in  Wiesbaden  it  was  already  an  accomplished 
success ;  in  New  York  it  was  produced  in  Octo- 
ber, 1910,  to  become  at  once  the  event  of  the 
season,  and  England  is  to  see  it  very  soon. 

It  is  to  be  presumed,  then,  that  the  attitude 
of  the  wife  in  that  play  toward  the  genius  to 
whom  she  is  married  is  by  now  fairly  familiar 
to  the  English  peoples. 

Realizing  that  he  is  nothing  but  the  eternal 
child,  she  has  not  only  patience  but  pardon  for 
his  waywardness,  his  love-o'-women,  much  of 
which  is  indeed  nothing  but  a  sort  of  infantile 
greediness  for  sweets,  a  fondness  for  flattery. 
Still,  the  fact  remains,  and  becomes  the  crux  of 
the  play,  that  he  does  go  philandering  after 
other  women,  and  that  at  last  it  reaches  a  point 
where  the  wife  has  to  bring  him  up  with  a  sharp 


98  MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

turn  of  the  actual,  and  make  him  come  definitely 
to  decision  between  his  wife  and  the  other 
woman.  She  does  again  what  every  wise  woman 
knows,  and  Barrie  knew,  to  be  the  only  thing 
to  do  in  such  a  case:  she  lets  her  husband  and 
the  other  woman  bore  each  other  stiff.  A  little 
physical  jealousy  is  put  in  play,  too ;  the  genius 
is  allowed  to  watch  his  wife  adopting,  with  the 
other  woman's  husband,  exactly  his  own  tactics 
of  free  love.  Not  a  new  situation,  but  never 
before,  perhaps,  used  with  such  frank,  such 
human  acceptance  of  the  terms  of  modern  intel- 
ligence. Percy  Mackaye  used  exactly  the  same 
device  of  the  two  shifted  couples  in  his  bur- 
lesque "  Anti-Matrimony." 

Nothing  is  more  disheartening  than  the  mol- 
lusc-like clinging  to  theatricals  in  the  mind  of 
the  average  citizen.  About  Barrie's  play,  as 
about  Bahr's,  the  opinion  of  the  man-in-the- 
street  remains  thus :  "  Say,  ain't  that  a  little 
far-fetched?  I  don't  see  me  letting  my  wife  go 
off  that  way ! "  If  I  have  heard  that  once,  I 
have  heard  it  a  hundred  times.  These  good 
people  continue  to  apply  to  all  human  circum- 
stances the  rules,  not  of  common  sense,  but  of 
melodrama  as  pictured  by  the  conventional 
theatres  and  the  yellow  newspapers.  They 
might  even  go  so  far  as  to  declare,  these  dear, 
good  slaves  of  convention,  these  livers  not  of 
their  own  lives  but  of  lives  as  they  think  others 


OTTO  ERICH  HAETLEBEN  99 

thought  they  ought  to  be  lived,  that  the  heroine 
in  "  The  Concert  "  is  an  impossible  person.  A 
charming  woman,  we  admit  —  one  fancies  them 
saying  —  but  of  course  it  would  be  humanly, 
femininely  impossible  to  do  what  she  did.  It 
cannot  occur  to  them,  if  they  deny  her  actuality, 
that  they  are  belittling  the  grand  possibilities 
of  a  woman's  heart,  the  possibilities,  indeed,  of 
the  human  being.  Nothing  is  more  foolish  than 
to  say  that  this  or  that  human  action  is  impos- 
sible; to  the  human  soul,  even  more  than  to 
modern  science,  nothing  is  impossible. 

I  will  admit,  however,  that  until  I  came  across 
the  actual  instance  for  which  I  am  asking  your 
interest  now,  I  had  underrated  a  wife's  capac- 
ity for  patience  and  for  pardon.  Each  of  us 
whose  observation  of  real  life  leads  to  consider- 
ation of  real  problems  came  long  ago,  I  do  not 
doubt,  to  Barrie's  conclusion  and  to  Bahr's ; 
but  few,  I  venture  to  think,  ever  equal  in  their 
most  optimistic  fancies  the  height  of  tolerance 
to  which  Frau  Selma  Hartleben  reached. 

The  detail  of  Hartleben's  relation  to  woman- 
kind is  what  now  concerns  us;  it  is  upon  this 
relation  that  much  ink  —  a  deal  of  it  plentifully 
dosed  with  gall  —  has  been  spilt  in  the  last  two 
years,  from  1908  to  1910.  His  casual  dalli- 
ances quite  aside,  it  appears  that  there  were 
paramountly  two  women  in  his  life,  his  wife  and 
another.  As  result  we  have  friends  of  both 


100          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

rushing  into  print  with  proofs,  with  volumes  of 
letters.  The  whole  controversy  was  a  little 
distasteful. 

In  1908  appeared  a  small  volume  of  "  Let- 
ters to  His  Wife  "  that  started  the  opposition 
into  activity.  As  result  came,  in  1910,  a  vol- 
ume called  "  Letters  of  Otto  Erich  Hartleben  to 
His  Friend."  It  appealed  to  me  from  a  window 
in  the  German  town  where,  last  summer,  I  was 
making  my  inquiries  into  the  lives  and  works 
of  the  little  group  of  newer  Germans  to  which 
Hartleben  belonged.  The  pages  themselves, 
however,  appealed  not  at  all ;  the  whole  dispute 
that  they  were  published  to  foster  took  on  un- 
pleasant lights.  The  fact  that  he  was  married 
to  Frau  Selma,  and  at  the  same  time  loved  Frau 
Ellen  Birr,  we  might  accept  as  a  fact,  just  as, 
unless  we  are  clogged  with  convention,  we  ac- 
cept man  as  something  less  than  an  angel,  im- 
perfectly faithful,  casually  monogamous.  Un- 
pleasant, however,  were  the  tone  adopted  by 
those  who  published  these  letters  to  "  his 
friend,"  and  the  revelation  in  the  letters  them- 
selves of  Hartleben's  ability  to  write  himself 
down  a  most  silly  ass. 

It  is  true,  declared  the  faction  of  Frau  Ellen, 
that  he  was  married  to  Selma,  but  you  know 
perfectly  well  that  he  lived  with  her  before  he 
married  her,  and  he  only  did  it  in  a  weak  mo- 
ment of  wishing  to  right  her  too  hazardous 


OTTO  ERICH  HAETLEBEN        101 

position  in  the  world.  His  love  of  comfort  and 
ease  meant  so  much  to  him,  that  he  continued 
living  with  his  wife  long  after  he  had  ceased  to 
love  her.  It  was  to  Frau  Ellen  that  all  the  later 
years  of  his  life  belonged,  it  was  to  be  undis- 
turbed in  her  society  that  he  bought  the  Villa 
Halcyone,  at  Salo,  on  Garda.  So  on,  and  so 
on,  the  Ellenites.  They  declare  that  the  "  Let- 
ters to  His  Friend "  were  in  collection  and 
preparation,  meaning  no  harm  at  all  to  his  law- 
fully wedded  Selma,  when,  in  1908,  appeared 
the  "  Letters  to  His  Wife  "  containing  so  many 
references  to  "  the  other  woman  "  that  it  be- 
came necessary  to  clear  the  air.  Clearing  the 
air  seems  to  have  meant  an  insistence  on  all 
the  things  in  Hartleben's  life  that  might  as  well 
have  been  allowed  to  rest  with  that  life  itself. 

Sherard's  "  Life  of  Wilde  "  is  the  only  sim- 
ilar triumph  of  tactlessness  that  I  know  of  in 
recent  years.  And  the  letters  themselves,  as  I 
said,  detract  from  the  chance  of  taking  Hart- 
leben  seriously.  He  has,  for  example,  the  trick 
of  signing  himself  "  Your  little  Erich,"  which 
for  a  large,  able-bodied  man,  is  essentially  silly, 
even  when  we  have  allowed  for  the  average  silli- 
ness —  to  our  view  —  of  the  one-time  usual 
German  sentimentality. 

The  volume  was,  in  truth,  an  unusual  triumph 
of  unintended  disenchantment.  It  contained, 
over  and  above  the  tactless,  or  sentimental,  or 


102          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

silly,  or  inane  letter-press,  photographs  galore, 
not  only  of  Otto  Erich  himself,  but  of  this  in- 
amorata of  his,  Frau  Ellen. 

These  pictures  brought  the  beholder,  of  any 
nationality  save  German,  once  again  face  to 
face  with  the  astounding  gulf  between  the  Ger- 
man appreciation  of  beauty,  and  their  applica- 
tion of  it  to  their  own  bodies.  To  put  it 
plainly :  most  Germans  think,  and  even  fashion, 
beautiful  things,  and,  doing  so,  look  like  the 
very  devil.  The  moment  the  detail  of  beauty 
approaches  their  own  externals,  their  concern 
for  it  seems  to  disappear.  The  clothes  of  both 
the  men  and  the  women  appear  to  have  been 
wished  on  while  the  fire-alarm  was  ringing  des- 
perately. If  you  have  the  faintest  real  humor 
and  sense  of  proportion  in  you,  it  is  nothing 
less  than  puzzling  to  listen  to  a  German  lady 
discourse  upon  the  beauties  of  landscape,  of  the 
arts,  the  while  she  herself  is  a  blot  upon  that 
landscape,  an  offence  against  all  art.  Let  us 
not  use  the  dread  word,  consistency,  for  it  is 
too  dear  to  the  narrow  pharisaic  intelligence. 
The  word  is,  rather,  misinterpretation.  These 
people  would  pretend,  no  doubt,  that  the  human 
body  is  an  incident,  and  the  clothing  of  it  mere 
artless  necessity ;  that  what  matters  is  the  beau- 
tiful soul.  Which  is  nonsense,  as  the  Greeks 
knew  of  old.  The  really  fine  sense  for  beauty 
has  not  always  the  patience  to  inquire  whether 


OTTO  ERICH  HARTLEBEN        103 

a  beautiful  soul  indeed  lives  behind  this  or  that 
ugly  or  unkempt  habit. 

SOME  years  ago,  having  reached  ozone  again 
after  a  season  of  the  airless  Berlin  theatres,  I 
evolved  the  theory  that  any  art  which  moves 
eternally  in  dead  air,  unventilated,  breathed 
over  and  over,  must  presently  perish  as  do  all 
creatures  that  can  no  longer  breathe.  This 
absence  of  real  freshness  was  just  what  kept 
German  literature  between  1832  and  the  late 
'eighties  dead  as  any  mummy;  it  is  just  such 
circling  about  in  a  dead  centre  of  commercial- 
ism hedged  about  by  merely  literary  pretensions 
that  prevents  in  America  any  fresh  spontane- 
ous personality  coming  to  popular  utterance. 
The  German  theatre  has  too  long  asked  us  to 
consider  vital  problems  while  it  gave  us  devital- 
ized air  to  breathe.  Similarly,  these  good  peo- 
ple asked  us  to  go  with  them  on  the  road  to 
beauty  and  to  art,  but  to  avoid  noticing  that 
in  their  own  persons  they  outraged  both. 

A  certain  delightful  and  unconscious  aristo- 
crat of  my  acquaintance  —  the  North  Amer- 
ican Indian  is  the  only  native  American  aristo- 
crat —  who  daily  teaches  me  the  primitive  hu- 
manities and  complexities  of  the  female  mind, 
has  a  concrete  expression  for  the  occasions, 
rarer  on  the  American  side,  when  one's  sense  of 
the  fitness  and  beauty  of  things  and  people  is 


104          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

outraged.  Comes  a  female  faced  like  a  threat, 
clothed  like  a  disaster;  or,  again,  a  fair-faced 
damsel  hung  in  draperies  as  with  clouds,  more 
suited  to  the  frame  of  studio  or  boudoir  than 
of  fresh  air  and  sunlight;  and  my  friend  of 
beauty  says,  with  a  mocking  eye  at  me :  "  I'll 
bet  she  writes!  "  And,  all  too  often  and  too 
lamentably,  the  thing  is  true.  We  ourselves  but 
rarely,  it  is  true,  possess  this  type;  in  Ger- 
many it  is  national. 

This  is  not  to  exclaim  against  expression  of 
the  individual  in  clothes  as  well  as  on  canvas, 
in  words  or  melody ;  but  it  can  be  done  beauti- 
fully and  quietly,  without  outrage  to  the  general 
tone.  Mere  eccentricity,  mere  variation  from 
the  mass,  is  nothing;  nothing  is  easier.  Dis- 
tinction can  be  achieved,  the  ego  voiced,  in 
bodily  externals,  without  disturbing  the  cur- 
rent of  fine  and  fashionable  life  by  anything 
more  than  its  sense  of  our  triumph.  A  man 
can  do  this,  and  stay  apparently  within  the 
decrees  of  his  sex's  fashions ;  a  woman  can  do 
it  equally.  To  be  individual,  within  those  re- 
straints, is  far  more  difficult,  takes  far  finer  art, 
than  to  be  merely  lawless. 

All  Germany  forgets  this.  I  can  remember 
the  time  when,  sitting  in  what  was  then  still 
simply  Kroll's,  in  Berlin,  if  a  beautifully 
gowned  young  person  entered,  all  Berlin  mut- 
tered :  "  Aber  so  zieht  sich  doch  kein  anstan- 


OTTO  ERICH  HARTLEBEN        105 

diges  Madchen  an!"  ("But  —  no  decent  girl 
would  wear  a  dress  like  that!")  Things  are 
to-day  a  little  better,  but  not  much.  Germany 
as  a  nation,  like  England  as  a  nation  —  for  the 
ladies  who  get  their  gowns  in  Paris  are  a  small 
London  minority  —  still  holds  that  for  a  girl 
to  be  slovenly  clothed,  to  wear  abominable 
woolly  "  tailor-mades  "  obviously  patterned  in 
the  dark,  to  be,  in  short,  either  attired  for  com- 
fort regardless,  or  shaped  like  a  cook,  is  to  keep 
flaming  high  the  torch  of  virtue.  Germany, 
indeed,  goes  even  farther;  even  its  vice,  where 
it  is  most  national,  arrays  itself  in  the  garb  of 
the  most  virtuous  cook  that  ever  brewed  beer- 
soup. 

So,  I  repeat:  it  was  a  pity  they  printed 
Frau  Ellen's  picture  in  the  volume  intended  to 
prove  that  she  was  first  in  Otto  Erich  Hart- 
leben's  affections.  It  only  made  all  his  senti- 
mentality the  more  absurd.  It  left  more  unim- 
portant than  before  the  wonder  of  his  bigamous 
affections.  In  the  arts,  such  situations  can  be 
beautifully  clothed;  but  when  the  personages 
are  actually  so  quenching  to  our  sense  of  the 
beautiful,  how  the  deuce  can  we  be  romantic 
about  it  all?  Hartleben  himself,  before  his 
health  gave  way,  was  a  fine  enough  figure  of  a 
man ;  but  not  even  that  figure  could  stand  the 
revelations  of  his  silliness  through  these  letters. 


106          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

No  breach-of-promise  case  in  the  public  prints 
of  England  or  America  ever  held  sillier  writings. 
As  for  the  lady  they  were  written  to  —  well, 
let  us  not  be  ungallant,  or  as  tactless  as  her 
friends,  Dr.  Fred  B.  Hardt  and  the  rest.  Let 
us  say,  simply,  that  she  was,  that  she  looked, 
very,  very  German. 

All  that  these  letters  told  us,  as  of  value  to 
a  picture  of  Hartleben,  added  but  slightly  to 
our  knowledge  of  masculine  temperament.  He 
married;  later  he  went  back  to  his  first  love, 
and  he  pouted  vastly  when  the  wife's  patience 
sometimes  showed  the  strain.  He  protested, 
time  and  again,  that  the  accident  of  his  passion 
for  his  wife  having  cooled,  and  that  for  another 
keeping  the  youth  and  ambition  astir  in  him, 
should  not  be  made  to  wear  the  faces  of  sin,  and 
wrong,  and  torture  for  him.  We  learn  that 
when  he  collapsed  in  December,  1900,  after  the 
"  Rosenmontag  "  premiere,  Ellen  and  Selma  sat 
together  by  his  bedside.  A  picture  astonishing 
enough  to  the  puritan  mind!  At  the  end  of 
1902  he  and  Ellen  moved  into  the  villa  on  Lake 
Garda,  where  most  of  his  last  stories,  plays  and 
verses  were  composed.  From  the  Vienna  pre- 
miere of  "  Im  Griinen  Baum  zur  Nachtigall  " 
he  returned,  November,  1904,  sick  unto  death, 
to  Venice  and  to  Ellen,  to  die,  in  February  fol- 
lowing, in  his  villa  by  the  lake.  Nothing,  in  all 
this,  adds  to  any  wish  to  like  Hartleben  as  a 


OTTO  ERICH  HAETLEBEN         107 

man.  He  wrote  love-letters  sillier  than  the 
average;  he  was  as  selfish  and  as  bigamous  as 
the  average;  differing  only  in  frankly  practis- 
ing what  most  only  feel.  Nothing  else  about 
him  moved  one  here.  About  the  woman  — 
nothing. 

WHAT  a  contrast  to  all  this  detraction,  more 
effective  because  unintentional,  was  the  little 
volume,  "  Mei  Erich,"  in  which  Frau  Selma 
Hartleben  told  a  few  simple  little  anecdotes  that 
reveal  to  us  the  real  genius,  the  real  eternal 
child,  in  this  man!  And  here  it  was,  through 
these  little  incidents  caught  casually  out  of  an 
artist's  life,  that  we  came  to  see  the  supreme 
height  of  patience  and  of  pardon  that  the  female 
soul  can  touch.  Nothing  in  literature,  as  I  have 
said,  surpasses  what  this  little  book  of  a  short 
hundred  pages  discloses;  and  surely  life  itself 
can  equal  it  but  seldom. 

Here  was  restored  to  kindliness  and  charm 
the  picture  that  had  been  so  stained.  Here  was 
a  Hartleben  who  was  simply  all  child,  with  all 
a  child's  naughtiness,  irresponsibility,  charm. 
A  man  who  could  fare  forth,  with  another,  into 
the  broad  world,  even  as  far  as  Tunis  in  Africa, 
with  money  enough  for  six  months,  spend  that 
in  two,  and  trust  to  luck  for  all  else.  Some- 
thing, some  one,  would  turn  up,  to  settle  bills; 
and  something,  some  one,  always  did.  A  man 


108          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

who  was  constantly  bringing  home  stray,  un- 
washed, graceless  vagabonds  and  trying  to  help 
them.  There  was  one  such  case,  recited  here, 
in  which  Hartleben  failed  signally. 

A  soapless,  homeless  creature  named  Hille 
tempted  Hartleben's  educational  instincts;  he 
bought  him  a  trunk,  linen,  etc.,  saw  him  bathed, 
barbered,  and  finally  rented  a  lodging  for  him. 
Then,  lending  him  a  pack  of  books  from  his 
own  house,  where  they  had  spent  the  evening, 
he  sent  him  forth,  satisfied  that  he  had  made 
out  of  a  vagabond  a  homekeeping  youth. 
Three  days  later,  on  the  street,  with  the  same 
pack  of  books  under  his  arm,  the  same  by  now 
filthy  collar,  the  same  unshaven  face,  Hille 
meets  them.  Hartleben  shouts  at  him :  "  Where 
from  ?  Haven't  you  been  home  at  all  ?  "  And 
Hille  said  gently :  "  You  see,  Otto  Erich,  the 
fact  is :  I  couldn't  find  my  lodgings,  and  so  — 
I  went  for  a  little  walk."  "  And  where  did  you 
sleep?  "  "  Oh,  on  a  bench,  in  the  Thiergarten. 
One  sleeps  quite  comfortably  there."  Erich 
gave  up  his  job  as  reformer. 

But  his  naivete  about  money  and  about  men 
was  nothing  to  his  naivete  about  women.  And 
here  comes  the  amazing  part  of  it  all,  the  part 
that,  as  I  said,  makes  even  Bahr's  version  of  the 
possibilities  pale.  I  wish  I  could  translate  these 
little  anecdotes  in  toto  for  you ;  every  word  in 
them  belongs  to  the  most  valuable,  the  most  in- 


OTTO  ERICH  HAETLEBEN         109 

timate  revelation  of  man  and  of  woman  that 
any  life-story  has  ever  given  us.  We  see  the 
man's  childish  simplicity,  his  little  egoisms,  his 
kindness;  we  see  the  woman  reading  him  like  a 
book,  knowing  all  his  signs,  all  his  most  absurd 
whims.  She  knew  when  he  sighed  and  moped 
he  had  something  to  confess ;  and  some  of  the 
things  he  confessed  may  be  astonishing  to  puri- 
tans, but  to  men  and  women  of  the  larger  world 
the  only  astonishment  can  be  in  regard  to  the 
wife's  attitude. 

Once  when  he  had  just  spent  a  delightful  eve- 
ning shocking  a  respectable  Woman's  Club  in 
the  provinces  by  choosing  for  his  reading  a 
number  of  his  most  dangerous  anecdotes,  he 
handed  his  wife  a  sheaf  of  love-letters  that  had 
been  sent  him  by  adoring  damsels ;  one  of  them 
asked  him  to  wear  a  rose  as  sign  of  his  agree- 
ing to  a  rendezvous ;  he  gave  it  to  his  wife  and 
bade  her  wear  it,  so  that  the  young  lady  might 
see  which  way  the  wind  lay. 

Another  time  he  confessed  to  her  that  he  had 
taken  pity  on  a  likely  looking  girl  he  had  met 
in  the  street,  and  wanted  his  wife's  advice  and 
aid.  He  painted  the  encounter  charmingly: 
the  charming  girl,  the  little  episode  of  a  gust  of 
wind  displacing  her  hat,  of  his  picking  it  up. 
Her  fresh  young  face  —  not  a  year  over  six- 
teen !  He  took  her  to  supper,  and  she  told  him 
her  tale  of  woe.  We  know  those  tales  of  woe ; 


110          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

but  Hartleben  seems  always  to  have  been  in- 
genuous. He  not  only  listened,  but  sent  a  mes- 
senger over  to  his  wife  for  five  dollars.  .  .  . 
"  Your  note,"  said  Frau  Selma,  as  he  confessed, 
"  distinctly  said :  for  something  pressing !  " 
"  Well,  it  was  something  pressing.  Listen : 
She  is  an  orphan,  from  the  provinces,  a  Miss 
Von  Burg.  Her  people  had  money;  but  she 
was  unhappy  at  her  guardian's,  and  a  young 
man  eloped  with  her,  here  to  Berlin,  and  left  her 
without  a  penny.  .  .  .  You  see,  if  we  don't 
help  her,  .  .  .  '  Enough;  the  thing,  now, 
was  for  Frau  Selma  to  call  on  the  young  lady 
and  make  sure  that  she  was  what  she  had  repre- 
sented herself  to  be.  She  never  failed  the  great 
big  boy  in  these  things ;  she  went,  and  she  had 
the  other's  fairy-tale  put  into  its  proper  light 
soon  enough.  Yet,  even  then,  she  made  an  ef- 
fort; she  asked  the  girl  to  come  and  live  with 
Erich  and  herself,  to  begin  all  over  again ;  the 
girl  said  the  landlady  would  not  give  up  her 
trunks ;  never  mind,  let  those  stay,  as  long  as 
she  herself  came ;  those  could  be  fetched  later ; 
the  girl  agreed  to  come  on  the  morrow.  She 
never  came.  The  prospect  of  a  regular  orderly 
life  appalled  her;  that  was  all.  "  Too  bad,  too 
bad,"  muttered  Otto  Erich.  "I  suppose  I'll 
never  learn." 

There  was  nothing  he  did  not  tell  his  wife. 

He  told  her   of   the   little    factory   girl   in 


OTTO  ERICH  HARTLEBEN        111 

Rome,  for  whom  he  had  to  buy  clothes  before 
he  could  be  seen  out  with  her;  and  how,  some- 
how, those  clothes,  though  far  simpler,  had  cost 
so  much  more  than  his  wife's.  He  wondered  if 
she  wasn't  in  jail  by  this  time;  she  was  such  a 
little  thief.  Thief?  Yes;  he  always  had  to 
watch  her  when  she  sewed  buttons  on  for  him; 
she  knew  he  carried  his  money  in  his  waistcoat 
pocket.  She  was  always  wanting  to  sew  but- 
tons on  for  him.  And  of  course  he  wouldn't  tell 
her  that  he  knew  what  she  was  after ;  why  spoil 
her  little  pleasure? 

He  told  her  what  was  behind  the  misspelt  and 
ungrammatical  letter  which,  on  an  occasion  when 
his  affairs  demanded  her  doing  that  for  him,  she 
had  opened.  This  letter  announced  that  the  un- 
dersigned, "  Your  Emmy,"  had,  with  her  chum, 
duly  rented  the  room  he  had  promised  to  pay  the 
rent  of;  said  he  could  meet  her  at  the  bridge 
that  night  with  the  money ;  sent  him  kisses  and 
respects,  addressed  to  "  Lieber  Ehrig  siser 
Schaz,"  the  atrocity  of  which  I  will  not  attempt 
to  betray. 

As  so  often  on  occasions  of  this  sort,  it  was 
over  some  food  and  drink  at  Kempinski's,  in 
Berlin,  that  he  made  his  explanation.  On  his 
way  to  Berlin  he  had  paused  in  Leipzig,  long 
enough  to  visit  an  old  tavern  of  his  student 
days.  And  there  he  had  got  into  conversation 
with  a  couple  of  likely  looking  serving  girls. 


112          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

One  of  them  sighed  as  he  said  he  was  bound  for 
Berlin.  "  Ah,  Berlin  —  that's  the  only  place ! 
They  know  how  to  value  one  there.  But  here 
.  .  .  The  boss  is  a  beast,  makes  us  polish  and 
scrub  all  forenoon ;  the  customers  never  let  up, 
and  there  ain't  no  tips.  But  Berlin  .  .  .  ruf- 
fles and  laces  .  .  .  and  the  fine  gentlemen,  ah, 
Berlin !  "  It  occurred  to  him  as  a  good  j  oke  to 
let  the  old  innkeeper  whistle  for  this  couple 
when  he  came  next  morning,  to  have  them  take 
French  leave.  "  Girls,  come  on  to  Berlin ;  I'll 
pay  your  tickets,  and  your  room  for  the  first 
month  —  but  it  mustn't  cost  more  than  thirty 
marks  —  so  sharp  five-thirty  at  the  station ; 
leave  the  rest  to  me."  He  even  put  them  into 
the  dining-car;  fed  their  joy  at  being  able 
to  drink  bubble-water  at  so  many  miles  an  hour ; 
and  drank  innumerable  times  the  old  innkeep- 
er's health. 

"And  now  this  letter,  Erich?"  asked  his 
wife. 

"  Why,  don't  you  see,  now  she  thinks  she  has 
to  do  the  tender ;  she  can't  imagine  that  I 
meant  to  get  her  that  room,  without  wanting 
anything  for  it.  ...  Yes,  I'm  going  to  the 
rendezvous;  I  promised  that;  but  you  needn't 
be  jealous.  .  .  ." 

His  wife  merely  laughed,  and  asked  only 
this: 

"  Aren't  you  ever  going  to  be  sensible?    You, 


OTTO  ERICH  HARTLEBEN        113 

with  your  forty  years,  still  playing  jokes  like 
that!" 

"  Oh,  well,  you  see  .  .  .  you  see,  I'm  just 
naturally  an  old  donkey." 

AND  now  to  the  two  gems  of  these  brief 
sketches,  that  give  so  sharply  the  picture  of 
the  man.  One  of  these  is  so  short,  so  exquisite 
in  all  the  finer  sense,  that  I  must  try  to  give  it 
to  you  word  for  word.  It  is  called  "  The 
Aluminum  Keys,"  and  it  goes  thus: 

"  One  day  Professor  L.,  to  whom  I  had  gone 
in  my  anxiety  over  severe  pain  from  which  I 
had  been  suffering,  told  me  I  must  undergo  an 
operation.  I  was  to  send  my  husband  to  him. 
I  asked  the  doctor  to  forego  an  interview  with 
Otto,  who  would  only  be  upset,  and  would  be 
of  no  help  to  me ;  in  any  event  my  husband  was 
going  to  Munich  in  the  next  few  days,  and  the 
operation  could  take  place  in  his  absence.  The 
professor  would  listen  to  nothing  of  that,  and 
insisted  on  the  visit.  So  I  delivered  his  mes- 
sage, and  next  day  Erich  went  to  see  him. 

"  When  he  returned,  he  was  all  broken  up 
and  in  such  despair  as  I'd  only  seen  him  once 
before  in  his  life.  His  misery  and  tears  were 
heart-breaking ;  there  was  hardly  any  soothing 
him. 

"  I  assured  him  he  was  borrowing  trouble, 
that  it  wasn't  as  bad  as  all  that,  and  all  would 


114          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

be  right  again  in  no  time,  —  and  the  man  who, 
a  moment  ago,  had  appeared  to  be  breaking 
down  under  his  weight  of  woe,  grew  calm  as  a 
child  that  has  cried  itself  out,  and  hardly  had 
my  last  words  died  away,  when  he  was  peace- 
fully asleep. 

"  Next  day  he  took  me  to  the  hospital. 
When  at  parting  he  saw  my  pleading  look,  he 
understood,  without  words,  and  said,  in  an  in- 
jured tone:  'How  could  you  think  anything 
like  that  of  me,  my  dear;  you  really  need  not 
worry.  Particularly  —  how  could  you  think  it 
of  me  ?  —  now,  when  you  are  ill ! '  He  be- 
came almost  angry  —  and  kissed  me  time  and 
again. 

"  When  the  operation  was  happily  over,  word 
was  sent  to  him,  and  on  the  instant  he  sent  to 
my  bedside  a  poem,  out  of  the  deeps  of  his 
heart,  to  the  deeps  in  mine.  As  soon  as  he 
could,  he  came  to  see  me;  he  was  so  happy,  in 
such  tender  mood,  that  the  tears  Icept  streaming 
down  his  cheeks. 

"  While  drying  these  tears  there  fell  from  his 
pocket  with  his  handkerchief  two  keys  —  imme- 
diately in  front  of  my  bed.  The  next  moment 
I  had  seized  the  situation ;  I  could  bring  no 
word  to  my  lips ;  I  only  looked  at  him  sadly. 
As  he  picked  up  the  keys,  he  said :  *  How  you 
do  notice  everything,  every  least  little  thing; 
I  can  do  what  I  will  ...  be  as  careful  as  any- 


OTTO  ERICH  HARTLEBEN         115 

thing  .  .  .  you  always  get  on  to  it,  no  matter 
how  I  try.'  '.  .  .  Really  too  tactless ! '  'Oh, 
please,  you  mustn't  get  excited  ...  it  really 
isn't  my  fault.  It  was  she  who  put  the  keys  in 
my  pocket,  when  I  wouldn't  take  them,  so  that 
I  could  come  at  night  without  bothering  — 
and  to  think  they  had  to  fall  out  just  here,  in 
front  of  your  bed  .  .  .  just  my  rotten  luck 
again ! ' 

"  With  that,  he  pocketed  them  again,  and  as 
I  still  remained  speechless,  he  grinned  at  me 
like  a  mischievous  boy,  and  said: 

"  *  You  know,  they  don't  hurt  the  trousers 
at  all ;  they're  quite  light  .  .  .  aluminum ! ' 

"  And  to  this  day,"  concludes  Frau  Selma, 
"  those  keys  lie  on  my  desk." 

I  PUT  that  bit  from  the  life  of  a  man  and  a 
woman  with  the  most  wonderful  in  that  sort 
that  history  holds.  By  its  light  you  can  under- 
stand all  the  heroes  and  victims  of  temperament, 
and  can  see  that  life  alone,  and  not  its  literary 
chronicles,  achieves  the  pinnacles. 

YET,  though  it  add  nothing  to  our  affection 
for  this  overgrown  selfish  boy,  another  last  tale 
remains  to  tell  from  the  tiny  post-obit.  Once 
again,  we  are  told,  his  wife  saw  the  well-known 
symptoms  in  him.  At  long  last  he  gasped  his 
trouble  out :  "  I  have  a  child ! "  As  she  sat 


116          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

aghast,  he  added,  "Yes  .  .  .  that  is  .  .  . 
they  say  I'm  the  father."  "  And  aren't  you?  " 
"H'm;  well  .  .  .  that's  just  it  ...  that's 
what  you're  to  decide !  " 

"I?     My  God,  how  can  I  .  .  ." 
"  Yes,  you."    And  at  last  the  load  flowed  off 
his  mind.    "  Yes,  you.    You  go  to  Munich  with 
me,  find  an  excuse  to  visit  the  girl,  look  at  the 
baby,  and  if  you  find  that  it's  mine,  then  — 
then  we'll  adopt  it  and  bring  it  up." 
"  And  if  it's  not  your  child?  " 
"  Then  I'll  pay,  but  nothing  more." 
To  make  it  brief:    she  did  go  and  see  the 
little  seamstress  in  Munich,  and  took  a  look  at 
the  fair-haired,  blue-eyed  child,  with  the  some- 
what   broad    cheek-bones,    a    characteristic    of 
Erich;   it  might  well  enough  be  his  child.     To 
his  entreaties  that  she  try  everything  to  get 
the  child  from  its  mother  she  interjected  only 
this,  that  tells  much  of  his  character  and  hers: 
"  You're    doing    the    disposing    again,    Erich. 
Have  you  ever  so  much  as  asked  me  if  I  want 
the  child?  " 

"  But,  my  dear,  that's  understood ;  you  al- 
ways do  what  I  want." 

Well,  they  got  the  child,  though  under  pro- 
test from  the  mother,  who,  all  the  four  or  five 
years  that  they  had  the  little  one,  threatened 
to  come  for  it.  When  "  Rosenmontag " 
brought  its  author  into  the  limelight,  the 


OTTO  ERICH  HAETLEBEN         117 

mother  finally  did  come  up  from  Munich,  and, 
her  extortionate  demands  being  refused,  took 
the  child  away.  And  Selma  Hartleben  con- 
cludes, quite  simply,  and  sadly:  ".  .  .  And  so 
the  child  that  we  had  loved  and  fondled  for 
years  was  torn  from  us  —  just  as  it  was  in  its 
first  bloom.  To  lose  that  bloom,  perhaps,  in 
other,  meaner  conditions.  Erich  got  over  it 
quickly;  other  incidents  were  crowding  his 
life ;  but  I  got  over  it  very  —  very  slowly." 

What  can  one  add  to  such  a  chapter  as  that? 
Comment  were  fatuous. 

A  CHILD,  naughty,  mischievous,  but  loving, 
coming  to  tell  all  its  joys  and  troubles  to  some 
little  mother,  that  was  Otto  Erich  Hartleben. 
And  the  little  mother  was  Selma,  his  wife.  No 
wife  ever  sketched  an  overgrown  boy  more 
clearly  than  she  has  done  in  her  "  Mei  Erich." 
The  boy  who,  when  they  played  the  piano  too 
abominably  in  the  flat  upstairs,  could  not  work, 
but  gleefully  seized  Frank  Wedekind's  appear- 
ance to  sally  to  Kempinski's ;  the  boy  whose 
handkerchiefs  always  wore  other  initials  than 
his  own ;  the  boy  who  could  be  so  good,  and  at 
his  wickedest  never  seemed  horrid  to  her  —  that 
was  the  boy  she  gave  to  posterity  in  her  little 
book.  That  book,  this  entire  incident,  belongs 
in  the  forefront  of  the  history  of  human  tem- 
perament. 


118          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

It  is  as  an  example  of  temperament,  of  the 
eternal  child  in  man,  rather  than  as  creative 
artist,  that  Otto  Erich  Hartleben  has  place  in 
any  adequate  account  of  the  newer  German 
literature. 


VII 

OTTO    JULIUS    BIEEBAUM 


IF  in  Detlev  von  Liliencron  we  saw  a  nation- 
ally German  spirit  revived  through  his  heroic- 
ally naive  interpretation  of  life,  and  in  Otto 
Erich  Hartleben  the  naively  childish  possibilities 
of  the  German  temperament  somewhat  arrest- 
ingly  proclaimed,  it  was  in  Otto  Julius  Bier- 
baum  that  the  absolutely  typical  Teuton  min- 
strel definitely  reappeared.  Here,  attuned  to 
our  own  time,  was  again  the  very  air  of  Walther 
von  der  Vogelweide  himself,  and,  even  more 
peculiarly,  that  of  Neidhardt  von  Reuenthal. 

But  I  must  not  burden,  here  at  very  first, 
with  mere  commentaried  chatter,  that  gay  and 
gracious  spirit.  What  I  would  have  you  do, 
if  possible,  is  to  catch  some  share  of  the  delight 
in  him  that  I  have  had  these  several  years.  The 
wealth  of  sensations  he  has  lent  me,  how  shall 
I  spell  them  for  you?  I  see  the  map  of  my 
years  dotted  with  many  happy  accidents  of 
travel;  none  happier  than  where  they  brought 
me  another  Bierbaum  book.  This  one  in  Ham- 
119 


120          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

burg ;  the  "  Irrgarten  der  Liebe  "  on  the  Pots- 
damerstrasse ;  the  "  Deutsche  Chansons  "  in 
Eisenach ;  "  Stilpe  "  aboard  the  Graf  W alder- 
gee;  the  "  Sentimental  Journey  in  a  Motor 
Car  "  in  Wiesbaden ;  and  a  delightful  edition 
of  his  early  Carnival  Plays  in  Munich  the  very 
week  that  he  lay  in  Dresden  dying. 

For  never  again,  in  the  flesh,  will  that  blithe 
spirit  sing  to  us ;  I  feel  the  loss,  I  assure  you, 
as  of  a  friend,  a  man  who  gave  me  many,  many 
moments  of  delight.  There  went,  in  him,  a 
charming  human  creature,  who  had  started  hap- 
piness in  many  human  breasts ;  it  was  his  finest 
quality  that  one  thought  of  him  humanly, 
rather  than  as  mere  man  of  letters.  Though 
I  had  never  seen  him,  I  felt,  that  Carnival  of 
1910,  that  I  had  suffered  in  his  death  the  death 
of  somewhat  of  my  own  youth.  To  find  a  new 
book  of  his,  hear  a  new  song,  follow  a  new  play, 
was  to  keep  quick  those  eager  sensations  that 
spell  youth.  Never  again  may  just  that  spirit 
of  discovery  come.  ..."  Never  again  "  — 
that  was  a  word  of  Bierbaum's  too,  and  in  a 
quick  sketch  of  the  memory  it  leads  to,  I  hope 
to  arrest  your  attention,  so  that  you  may  have 
patience  for  the  later,  soberer,  elucidations. 

"  NEVER  again,"  said  Otto  Julius  when  dis- 
aster swamped  his  little  Trianon  Theatre  under 
the  railway  arch  in  Berlin.  Ten  years  ago,  as 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIEEBAUM         121 

near  as  need  be.  He  had  tried  to  give  the  pop- 
ulace the  ballad  that  would  stand  print,  set  to 
the  music  that  would  lift  itself  into  the  street 
upon  the  lips  of  the  listeners.  He  had  tried  to 
bridge  the  gulf  between  literature  and  the 
music-halls.  He  had  failed.  The  public  still 
wanted,  as  it  has  always  wanted,  platitudinous 
doggerel,  and  A-B-C  music.  But  he  was  a 
humorist.  He  smiled  his  "  This  once,  and  never 
again ! "  and  turned  to  other  things.  Always 
something  new,  something  different.  He  was  a 
modern.  You  might  not  have  thought  him  a 
German  at  all,  if  you  had  in  mind  the  conven- 
tional figure  of  the  German  scholiast,  or  the 
anti-macassar  virtues  of  the  Gartenlaube. 

He  was  one  of  the  few  interesting,  arresting 
figures  in  contemporary  art  or  letters.  The 
picturesque  adventurers  of  the  day  are  not 
many ;  no  matter  what  range  of  insular,  con- 
tinental or  American  arts  you  sweep.  Bernard 
Shaw  is  become  a  convention ;  Whistler  and 
Mansfield  are  gone.  Youth,  alas,  is  so  soon 
faded.  The  adventurer  of  to-day  becomes  the 
obese  banker  of  to-morrow.  The  buccaneer 
and  the  butterfly  conspire  to  become  taxpaying 
citizens.  Ah,  yes,  alas ;  but  there  was  always, 
until  just  the  other  day,  Otto  Julius! 

For  years  I  hugged  to  myself  the  joy  he 
gave.  Whenever  I  came  near  serious  discovery 
of  him  to  our  English  worlds,  I  always  con- 


122          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

eluded :  No ;  let  the  blind  be  happy  in  their 
blindness.  Now,  after  all,  in  gratitude  perhaps 
at  the  greatness  of  the  gifts  he  gave,  I  am  giv- 
ing away  the  secret  of  much  joy. 

Yet  only,  at  first,  hinting,  sketching.  Just 
as,  in  his  own  famous  novel,  "  Stilpe,"  he 
sketched  an  entire  movement  in  modern  German 
culture.  The  solemn  folk  will  tell  you  that 
"  Stilpe  "  is  an  ineffective  piece  of  work ;  you 
will,  if  you  are  worldwise,  retort  that  no  book 
which  forecasts  actual  episodes  and  characters 
in  the  development  of  German  public  entertain- 
ment can  be  ineffective. 

And  then  the  poetry !  Many  volumes  of  it. 
It  was  the  poetry  that  first  held  me.  One  is  not 
ever  young ;  the  first  fine  delight  in  Swinburne 
is  hardly  regained.  Life  in  our  hard  world 
leaves  little  room  for  enjoyment  of  the  lyric 
moods.  Is  it  the  stress  of  the  world,  or  the 
decline  in  lyricism?  Whatever  the  reason,  the 
fact  was  patent :  the  lyric  moments  that  stuck 
in  the  memory  were  all  too  few.  A  line  or  so 
of  Aldrich's  or  Dobson's,  of  Carman,  of  Joaquin 
Miller,  of  Hovey;  what  else?  If  you  recall 
more,  you  are  more  fortunate  than  I.  The 
Lyric  Muse,  remember,  I  am  harping  on;  she 
happens  to  be  the  only  lady  of  the  lot  who  in- 
terests me  —  as  I  have  said  before.  It  was 
she,  that  Lyric  Lady,  who  had  so  perfectly 
taught  music  to  Otto  Julius.  You  are  aware, 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIERBAUM         123 

I  trust,  that  if  you  would  acquire  most  fault- 
lessly the  Parisian  accent,  you  must  take  a 
French  sweetheart.  The  Lyric  Lady  must  have 
loved  this  German  singer  well. 

How  spell  the  delight  the  first  dip  into  his 
verse  gave  me?  Heine,  Verlaine,  Dobson  and 
Gilbert ;  some  touch  of  all  was  there,  and  some- 
thing singularly  individual,  something  starkly 
Otto  Julius.  For  a  mark,  for  a  quarter  of  a 
dollar,  you  could  buy  more  joy,  in  Bierbaum's 
collected  "  Der  Irrgarten  der  Liebe,"  of  some 
four  hundred  pages,  than  you  could  buy  in  our 
English  language  for  four  times  that  sum. 
Who,  in  England  or  America,  would  buy  poetry 
in  paper  binding?  What  book  of  verse  in  Eng- 
lish, whether  paper,  cloth,  or  plush  a  la  Hub- 
bard,  has  ever  sold  to  the  extent  of  over  forty 
thousand  copies  in  four  or  five  years?  Will 
you  pardon  the  digression,  into  figures,  away 
from  poetry?  It  was  necessary  for  your  under- 
standing of  how  cheaply  the  finest  lyric  sensa- 
tion of  recent  years  came  to  me.  Otto  Julius 
was  by  then  no  mere  stranger  to  me ;  the  years 
of  the  Insel,  of  the  Bunte  Vogel,  and  of  Pan 
were  still  green ;  so  when  this  charming  pocket- 
piece  called  "  Love's  Maze  "  called  to  me  from 
a  counter  in  the  Potsdamerstrasse,  I  took  the 
vast  financial  risk ;  I  spent  a  quarter  of  a  dol- 
lar. 

Millionaires,   who    compute   profits   in   mere 


124          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

figures  and  paper  and  metal,  have  not  the  faint- 
est conception  of  the  profit  I  have  had  from 
that  quarter  of  a  dollar.  Hardly  a  mood,  gay 
or  dim,  but  has  its  echo  in  this  little  volume. 
That  there  was  more  than  mere  versification, 
more  than  mere  charm,  or  wit;  more,  indeed, 
than  mere  music,  was  proved  by  the  fact  that 
during  the  years  when  the  Uberbrettl'  movement 
reigned  in  Germany,  a  half  hundred  or  so  of  the 
briefer  of  these  lyrics  were  set  to  music  by  the 
best  of  the  younger  composers  and  sung  in  the 
halls,  the  halls  that  once,  under  the  railway 
arches  —  ah,  well,  never  again,  never  again.  .  . 

Ah,  if  only  about  Bierbaum  himself,  I  could 
always  let  the  man  himself  tell  the  story!  A 
little  something  autobiographic  he  did  occa- 
sionally give  us,  and  with  a  brief  of  that  we 
may  try  to  make  clear  our  picture  of  him. 

He  was  born,  he  told  us  in  one  whimsical  rec- 
ord, June  28,  1865,  in  Lower  Silesia.  The  vice 
of  versification  lured  him  from  his  earliest  years. 
To  such  an  extent  did  he  give  way  to  it  that, 
spurning,  as  he  did,  pecuniary  profit  as  the  chief 
end  of  man,  he  forfeited  the  esteem  of  all  the 
good  burghers  and  bureaucrats  who  had  his 
fate  at  heart.  His  utter  lack  of  principle  was 
still  more  fully  shown  when  he  forsook  his  poetic 
last,  and  went  philandering  about  with  novels, 
stories,  librettos,  ballets,  travel-books,  fairy- 
tales, and  goodness  knows  what  else.  The 


OTTO  JULIUS  BEEEBAUM         125 

rumor  of  wickedly  large  salaries  paid  him  for 
editorial  work  threatened  to  ruin  him;  as  did 
his  account  of  a  trip  to  Italy  in  a  motor-car; 
only  sworn  testimony  that  those  were  stage 
salaries,  and  that  he  went  a-motoring  at  an- 
other's expense,  saved  him.  He  never  hoped  to 
escape  the  disgrace  which  the  death  of  the  Tria- 
non Theatre  and  the  birth  of  the  Uberbrettl' 
attached  to  his  name  in  the  public  mind. 

Of  great  modern  men  he  preferred  Dosto- 
jewski,  Nietzsche  and  Gottfried  Keller.  He 
preferred  T.  T.  Heine  to  Max  Klinger.  He 
never  missed  an  Offenbach  operetta  if  he  could 
help  it.  Nor  would  he  willingly  miss  the  new- 
est books  of  Liliencron,  Dehmel  and  Wedekind. 
Religiously,  he  rested  upon  this  text  of  his  own : 
"  Keep  the  mob  at  a  distance,  for  it  prevents 
you  getting  into  your  own  heaven !  "  And  the 
finest  wonder  of  the  world  for  him,  not  only 
because  it  was  his  wife's  home,  was  Tuscany.  .  . 

To  that  merry  little  chronicle  of  his  own  — 
which  many  passages  in  his  books  of  travel  and 
criticism  enlarge,  and  from  some  of  the  opin- 
ions in  which  he  appears,  through  his  later 
volumes,  to  have  changed  —  we  may  add  some 
few  sober  details.  His  first  schooling  was  in 
Dresden,  and  all  his  first  youth  a  most  wretched 
period,  on  which  he  could  never  look  back  with- 
out shuddering.  Leipzig  was  the  nearest  ap- 
proach to  a  home  he  knew.  He  studied  in 


126          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

Zurich,  in  Leipzig,  and  finally  in  Munich ;  phi- 
losophy and  law  were  his  courses,  but  he  learned 
Russian  and  Persian  also.  Then  for  two  years 
he  studied  Chinese  in  Berlin.  Financial  disaster 
overtaking  his  parents,  he  had,  at  this  time, 
1891,  to  leave  his  studies,  and  undertake  the 
care  of  his  parents.  He  went  to  Munich  as  a 
free-lance  in  literature.  For  two  years  of  con- 
stant work  he  lived  not  far  from  the  Lake  of 
Starnberg,  near  Munich.  In  1893  he  moved  to 
Berlin,  where  for  six  months  he  edited  the  Free 
Stage.  Then,  with  several  others,  he  founded 
the  splendid  magazine,  Pan.  Eighteen  hundred 
and  ninety-five  to  1898  he  lived  in  Castle  Eng- 
lar  in  South  Tirol;  then  again  in  Munich,  in 
Fiesole,  and  in  Pasing  near  Munich.  He  died 
February  1,  1910,  in  Dresden. 

FOR  sheer  variety  in  craft,  if  for  nothing 
else,  it  would  be  hard  to  surpass  the  achieve- 
ments of  Otto  Julius  Bierbaum.  He  wrote  for 
the  light  stage  and  the  serious  stage ;  he  wrote 
the  loveliest  little  plays  to  music,  pantomimes, 
and  serious  tragedies;  he  wrote  a  novel  that 
started  a  revolution  in  public  entertainment; 
he  edited  innumerable  epochal  periodicals ;  and, 
above  all,  was  always  alert  for  what  was  new, 
what  was  national,  what  was  full  of  youth  in 
all  the  arts.  It  was  he  who  first  in  German  lit- 
erature went  aggressively  into  the  arena  for 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIEEBAUM         127 

such  painters  as  Boecklin,  Von  Uhde  and  Stuck. 
He  knew  that  the  real  genius  of  Germany  lay 
nearly  a  hundred  years  away,  with  Goethe,  and 
his  Goethe  Calendar  is  another  gift  he  gave  us. 
His  prose  was  of  an  intimacy,  and  a  spontaneity 
all  too  rare  in  any  language;  his  travel-vol- 
umes are  especially  rich  in  disclosures  of  the 
man,  the  thinker  in  Bierbaum ;  so  that  he  is  the 
only  sort  of  travel-companion  people  of  intelli- 
gence care  for;  he  is  charmingly  discursive. 
In  some  of  his  later  stories  and  novels  he  had 
his  stilted  and  tiresome  moments,  so  that 
"  Prinz  Kuckuk,"  for  instance,  interests  some 
people  more  because  it  is  obviously  a  study  of 
actual  personages,  than  because  of  its  intrinsic 
value.  It  is  no  secret  that  the  poet,  Alfred 
Walter  Heymel,  is  supposed  to  have  been  por- 
trayed in  "  Prinz  Kuckuk." 

Bierbaum,  the  poet,  has  contact  with  Lilien- 
cron  surely  enough,  and  owes  him  much,  and 
though  even  something  of  Hartleben  may  re- 
sound faintly  in  his  very  earliest  work,  it  is  Otto 
Julius  Bierbaum  who  combines  in  his  lyric  style 
the  tradition  of  all  German  lyricism.  You  may 
trace  Matthias  Claudius  in  him,  as  you  can  the 
old  Minnesingers.  He  built  upon  the  metric 
manner  of  Goethe;  he  showed  sentimental  ele- 
gance akin  to  Heine's.  More  than  any  man  of 
his  time,  by  Liliencron's  grace,  did  he  express 
purely  Teuton  sentiment,  utterly  stripped,  for 


128          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

perhaps  the  first  time,  of  its  absurdities,  its  sen- 
timentality. He  sang  the  simplicity,  the  might, 
the  sentiment  of  his  nation.  Essentially  his 
voice  was  the  voice  of  his  immediate  time; 
modern  Germany  is  more  fully  and  finely  ex- 
pressed in  Bierbaum  than  anywhere  else.  He 
approaches  Liliencron  in  this:  that  his  living 
and  his  singing  reach  virtue  through  simplic- 
ity; he  departs  from  Liliencron  in  this:  that 
while  the  gaiety  of  Liliencron  has  mostly  the 
serious  sombreness  of  the  North  behind  it,  Bier- 
baum's  gaiety  even  where  it  deepens  towards 
melancholy  retains  always  the  quality  of  grace- 
fulness. 

Grace,  charm,  these  are  wonderfully  Bier- 
baum's  qualities.  Let  us  avoid  labels  ;  but  this 
much  is  pertinent:  in  his  point  of  view  of  life, 
Bierbaum  was  impressionist;  in  performance 
he  was  stylist.  And  what  artist  of  sorts  is  any- 
thing else?  The  world  is  what  one's  individual 
eye  sees  it ;  after  that,  one  writes  as  —  one  has 
to  write!  To  pretend  anything  else  is  to  be 
either  knave  or  fool.  Bierbaum  lived  and  loved ; 
and  then  sang.  He  served  his  own  hard  ap- 
prenticeships ;  played  plentifully  the  youthful 
ape  after  this  and  that  style;  but  what  he  be- 
came, what  he  remains  for  our  eternal  apprecia- 
tion, is  the  most  typical  troubadour  of  his  coun- 
try in  his  time.  He  expressed  experiences  in 
verses  so  musical  that  reading  them  one  felt 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIEEBAUM         129 

them  to  be  the  spontaneous  loosing  of  pent-up 
melodies. 

From  time  to  time  certain  children  of  the 
dark  calling  themselves  scientists  trouble  us 
with  diagrams  of  what  constitutes,  to  the  fog 
they  call  their  minds,  poetry.  Against  their 
criminal  meddling  with  what  they  cannot  under- 
stand I  would  put  a  brief  line  or  so  from  the 
last  book  of  Bierbaum's  published  before  his 
death,  "  The  Yankeedoodletrip."  They  are 
about  the  lyric.  .  .  . 

'*  The  lyric !  A  matter  of  course  for  young 
folks,  since  it  is  like  breathing  for  them.  .  .  . 
Only,  there  are  very  few  really  young  people 
in  that  age  when  artistic  firmness  of  hand  is 
joined  to  sentiment.  What  Goethe  calls  the 
absurdity  of  the  lyric,  is  the  childish.  The  two 
purest  lyric  spirits  of  the  Germans  to-day, 
Martin  Greif  and  Max  Dauthendy,  are  both 
sheer  children  intellectually.  Rilke,  on  the 
other  hand,  with  his  uncanny  genius,  is  a 
prodigy.  .  .  ." 

The  final  reference  is  to  Rainer  Maria  Rilke, 
whose  verse,  for  sheer  technical  adroitness,  is 
perhaps  the  most  remarkable  in  Germany  to- 
day. In  material  he  has  much  the  monastic 
manner  of  the  late  Francis  Thompson. 

On  another  occasion  Bierbaum  learned  from 
one  of  the  people  themselves  —  those  German 
people  who  read  him  because  he  sings  the  es- 


130          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

sence  of  themselves  for  them !  —  a  nobly  prim- 
itive concept  of  a  lyric.  She  was  a  nursegirl 
who  shared  a  compartment  in  the  train  with 
him.  She  had  confessed  to  him  that  she  liked 
to  read  verses  better  than  anything  else,  and  she 
showed  him  a  book  into  which  she  had  copied 
all  her  favorites.  She  had  not  put  in  the  names 
of  the  authors ;  an  inconsequent  detail  to  her. 
He  looked  at  her  scrapbook,  and  blushed  to 
himself,  for  he  found  himself  represented  by  no 
less  than  a  dozen  specimens.  And  so  they  went 
on  chatting;  he  was  quite  sorry  when  the  train 
got  to  Munich.  For  she  had  explained  to  him, 
most  politely,  how  verses  must  be  in  order  to 
please  her.  As  thus:  They  must  be  just  as  if 
one  might  have  said  it  so  oneself,  only  much 
more  beautiful;  and  they  must  be  so  that  a 
tune  ought  to  go  with  them ;  and  they  must 
have  "  heart  "  in  them,  either  "  awfully  "  jolly, 
or  "  awfully  "  sad.  .  .  . 

Well,  exactly  upon  that  nobly  simple  formula 
were  the  lyrics  of  Bierbaum.  If  to  me  or  to 
you  they  seemed  to  hold  a  mood  for  every  mood 
of  ours,  what  would  they  not  hold  for  Germans  ? 
Small  wonder  that  they  bought  those  little 
books,  that  they  sang  those  songs!  Exactly 
so  would  they  like  to  have  said  it  themselves; 
and  no  more  beautiful  than  that  could  they 
imagine  it.  Bierbaum  was  the  minstrel  for 
them. 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIERBAUM         131 

The  scholars,  the  Brahmin  wardens  of  the 
world's  culture,  may  say  what  they  will,  the 
"  great  poetry  "  which  they  would  have  us  hold 
paramount,  is  not  what  was  meant  by  the 
shrewd  fellow  who  said  he'd  rather  write  the 
people's  songs  than  their  laws.  Songs  for  the 
people  were  exactly  what  Bierbaum  wrote. 
There  was  music  in  his  matter  and  in  his  man- 
ner; it  was  inevitably  singing  stuff,  and  the 
people  did  actually  sing  it.  The  best  of  the 
younger  composers  of  the  day  set  the  lines  to 
music,  and  presently  all  Germany  was  humming 
aloud  the  songs  of  this  minstrel. 

Here  it  becomes  necessary  to  forestall  two 
obvious  objections.  Firstly  the  objection  in- 
sistently issuing  from  the  Brahmins  that  if  Bier- 
baum appealed  to  the  people,  his  verse  must  in- 
deed have  been  sorry  stuff;  do  we  not  know 
what  trash  the  people  like,  what  atrocities  of 
"  Laugh  and  the  world  laughs  with  you,"  of 
"  Ostler  Joe  "  and  all  the  rest?  Against  this 
it  is  to  be  pointed  out  that  the  people,  the  aver- 
age, in  Germany  is  a  very  different  aggregation 
intellectually  from  what  it  is  with  us.  We  are, 
of  course,  in  no  event  considering  an  illiterate 
mob,  but  the  middle-class  majority  which,  in 
America,  patronizes  the  best-sellers  of  fiction, 
and,  in  England,  subscribes  to  Mudie's.  Now, 
bitter  as  this  truth  is,  the  fact  remains  that 
good  conversation  —  conversation  on  a  tone  of 


132          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

all-round  culture,  of  education,  if  you  like; 
conversation  disclosing  the  specialties  of  none, 
the  completely  furnished  intelligences  of  all  — 
is  possible  to-day  chiefly  among  Germans  and 
Russians.  Americans  can  never  talk  long  with- 
out falling  back  on  money;  France  runs  to 
women ;  England  runs  to  sport. 

The  subject  is  too  large  for  this  present 
page ;  yet  the  difference  between  what  "  the 
people  "  means  in  the  German  case,  and  in  our 
own  case,  when  we  are  considering  reading- 
matter,  must  be  insisted  on.  The  sneer  of  our 
Brahmins  falls  to  the  ground.  Were  any  other 
fact  needed  —  facts,  alas,  still  appeal  to  so 
many  unillumined  minds !  —  it  would  be  the  one 
already  referred  to :  Bierbaum's  "  Irrgarten 
der  Liebe  "  sold  its  forty  thousand  copies  in 
four  or  five  years.  When  you  can  show  any 
equivalent  to  that  in  English,  I  will  pretend 
patience  with  the  Brahmin  attitude  towards 
"  the  people." 

Will  the  Brahmins,  by  the  way,  pause  long 
enough  from  their  attitude  of  being  blind  to 
the  true  virtues  of  proper  minstrelsy,  to  con- 
sider the  question  whether  the  publicity  that 
Shakespeare  wrote  for  in  his  own  time  and 
place  was  not  exactly  that  of  the  music-hall? 
Or  will  they  let  some  merely  readable  writer 
discover  that  question  to  the  world?  The  stage 
that  Shakespeare  wrote  for  was  exactly  such  a 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIEEBAUM         133 

stage  for  the  people  as  these  newer  German 
balladists  wished  to  revive. 

Secondly  is  the  objection:  Oh,  this  was  dog- 
gerel for  the  music-hall,  was  it?  Now,  we  all 
recall  Emerson  and  his  "  j  ingle  man  "  conde- 
scension to  Foe.  The  Brahmins  are  consistently 
afraid  of  music,  because  they  seldom  possess  an 
ear.  Which  brings  us,  on  the  cue  of  the  music- 
hall,  to  that  part  of  Bierbaum's  career  as  mili- 
tant minstrel,  which  was  to  become  part  of  the 
history  of  entertainment  in  Germany  at  the 
turn  of  the  nineteenth  into  our  present  century. 
The  history,  in  short,  of  the  Uberbrettl',  which 
has  already  been  briefly  sketched  in  the  begin- 
ning of  this  book. 


THE  Uberbrettl'  had  its  real  beginning  in 
Bierbaum's  novel  "  Stilpe." 

Than  "  Stilpe  "  no  more  terrible  picture  of 
unscrupulous  journalistic  genius  exists  in  Eng- 
lish. It  owes  nothing  to  the  "  Scenes  de  la  Vie 
de  Boheme."  You  could  not  read  it  and  ever 
again  have  patience  for  the  timid  piffle  with 
which  too  many  writers  have  cloaked  the  **  ar- 
tistic temperament."  Here,  in  "  Stilpe,"  was 
nothing  less  than  a  dissection  of  a  soul  on  its 
way  to  hell,  by  way  of  modern  journalism. 

Stilpe  was  not  the  keyhole  type  of  journal- 
ist, that  the  circulation-mad  newspapers  in 


134          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

English  breed.  He  was  always  concerned  with 
the  arts;  it  was  as  critic  of  those  that  he  ex- 
posed his  shameless  unscrupulousness.  The 
novel  tells  us  of  Stilpe's  youth  and  formative 
years;  over  which  we  cannot  now  linger.  Suf- 
fice to  say  they  left  him  without  honor,  scru- 
ple, sobriety,  or  any  single  decent  principle  of 
life.  He  went  in  for  poetry ;  exploded  the  most 
appalling  bombs  of  eroticism;  and  appeared 
presently  as  critic.  He  became  the  terror  of  the 
artistic  community ;  his  pen,  steeped  in  vitriol, 
was  of  a  facility  unequaled.  But  his  excesses 
in  dishonesty  became  too  obvious;  he  went  just 
once  too  far  in  blackmail  and  outrageous  licen- 
tiousness of  malice ;  and  his  critical  star  fell  to 
earth. 

It  depends,  you  see,  upon  surroundings ;  in 
one  place,  if  you  are  too  dishonest,  as  Stilpe, 
you  perish;  in  another,  if  you  tell  the  truth 
about  the  theatre,  or  literature,  —  if,  in  short, 
you  are  simply  honest,  syndicates  of  managers 
and  publishers  see  to  it  that  you  perish.  Since 
the  case  of  the  late  Nym  Crinkle,  can  one  recall 
a  New  York  critic  whom  the  suspicion  of  dis- 
honesty has  injured? 

Outlawed  from  the  critical  circle,  Stilpe  de- 
termined upon  a  new  sensation.  At  first  it  was 
to  be  a  new  periodical;  to  contain  all  the  last 
words  in  artistic  scandalousness.  But  on  that 
came  the  tremendous  suggestion  that  an  artis- 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIEEBAUM         135 

tic  Variete  would  be  still  more  striking.  And 
on  that  page  of  the  novel  "  Stilpe  "  begins  an 
outline  sketch  for  what  later  actually  became 
the  Uberbrettl'  of  Germany.  In  form  of  the 
most  ironic  satire  the  whole  program  is  un- 
folded for  us  by  Stilpe  himself;  that  exagger- 
ated fictitious  program  was  but  slightly  de- 
parted from  when  the  scheme  was  really  at- 
tempted. And  the  tragic  picture  of  Stilpe  him- 
self appearing  in  the  "  halls  "  as  a  serio-comic 
is  nothing  less  than  a  foreshadowing  of  certain 
chapters  in  the  actual  career  of  the  actual 
Frank  Wedekind.  "  Stilpe  "  was  published  in 
1897;  the  so-called  Biedermeier  period  of  Ger- 
many has  no  more  extraordinary  specimen  of 
satire  and  prophecy. 

Let  me  try  to  give  you  fragments  of  Stilpe's 
own  notions  of  what  the  new  Literary  Music 
Hall  was  to  be.  What  had  been  first  suggested 
in  the  fumes  of  a  drunken  orgy,  expanded 
finely  in  the  only  slightly  soberer  light  of  day. 
Stilpe  had  not,  by  then,  been  sober  for  years. 
(His  career  makes  such  a  book  as  Stephen 
French  Whitman's  "  Predestined  "  the  palest  of 
palimpsests.)  We  find  him  at  his  desk,  in  the 
reek  of  liquor,  smoke,  and  perfumes  of  stage 
dressing-rooms;  he  was  in  the  first  fury  of 
plans  for  the  "  Momus "  Theatre,  as  it  was 
to  be  called.  Thus  he  planned: 

"  Yes,  yes :    all  art,  and  all  life,  to  be  born 


136          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

again,  by  way  of  the  music-hall!  .  .  .  Into 
our  net  we'll  drag  everything:  painting,  rhym- 
ing, singing,  and  everything  that  has  beauty 
and  the  joy  of  life  in  it.  What  is  art  to-day? 
A  tiny,  twinkling  spider-web  in  a  corner  of  life. 
We  will  spread  it  as  a  golden  net  over  the  whole 
people,  over  all  life.  For  to  us  will  come  all 
those  who  up  to  now  have  been  avoiding  the 
theatre  as  anxiously  as  the  church.  And 
though  they  come  only  for  a  bit  of  entertain- 
ment, we  shall  show  them  that  which  they  all 
lack :  the  true  gaiety  that  illumines  life,  the  art 
of  the  dance  in  words,  tones,  colors,  lines,  ges- 
tures. The  naked  joy  in  loveliness;  the  wit 
that  takes  the  world  by  the  ear;  the  fantasy 
that  juggles  with  the  stars  and  rope-walks  on 
the  whiskers  of  the  Cosmos ;  the  philosophy  of 
harmonious  laughter;  the  hurrah  of  a  soul  in 
pain  .  .  .  ah,  we  shall  work  in  life  itself  as 
did  the  troubadours!  We  shall  bring  a  new 
Culture  dancing  into  the  world!  We  will  give 
birth  to  the  Superman  in  our  halls !  We  will 
stand  this  silly  world  on  its  head;  crown  the 
indecent  as  the  only  decency ;  raise  nudity  in 
all  its  beauty  on  high  again  before  all  the  peo- 
ple. .  .  .  Ah,  the  things  we  will  make  the 
solid  citizens  (Biedermaenner)  of  Germania 
do,  when  once  we  put  this  new  spirit  into 
them  .  .  ." 

Again,  Stilpe,  when  it  became  a  question  of 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIERBAUM         137 

attracting  an  actual  "  angel "  for  his  scheme, 
came  closer  to  earth.  Thus: 

"  Look  at  the  theatres !  Empty !  Look  at 
the  Wintergarten  (the  hugest  music-hall  in 
Berlin)!  Full.  One  dying;  the  other  bloom- 
ing. .  .  .  The  day  of  the  theatre  is  done  .  .  . 
Just  as  the  theatre,  once  an  annex  of  the  church, 
loosed  itself  and  found  a  form  suitable  to  its 
period,  so  must  the  art  of  to-day  emancipate 
itself  from  the  theatre  and  decide  upon  the 
form  that  the  taste  of  our  time  has  determined: 
the  form  of  the  music-hall!  Both  are  ripe  for 
decline:  the  theatre  because  it  is  too  clumsy, 
too  heavy,  and  too  immobile  for  the  dram- 
drinking  appetite  of  our  latter-day  art-lovers; 
and  the  present  music-hall,  because  it  does  not 
know  how  artistically  to  express  all  the  nervous 
desires  and  emotions  of  our  time.  Let  us  found 
a  music-hall  based  on  art  in  its  broadest  inter- 
pretation. .  .  ." 

The  plot  ripened  merrily.  The  newspapers 
sneered  and  caricatured;  Stilpe  had  feverish 
struggles  with  his  poets,  his  dancers,  his  artists 
of  every  mentionable  and  unmentionable  sort. 
Especially  his  poets  enraged  him ;  they  would, 
would  hand  him  lyrics!  Who  was  to  sing  lyr- 
ics? His  hall  wasn't  going  to  be  a  reading- 
circle.  One  of  his  poets  sneered  at  Stilpe's 
rage :  "  Of  course,  comic  songs,  that's  what  you 
want.  Well,  get  Stinde  then  "  (Julius  Stinde, 


138          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

typically  a  humorist  of  the  Biedermeier  period, 
who  wrote  harmless  pages  fit  for  the  softest 
bosom  of  the  most  blameless  families.  P.  P.), 
"  or  that  Mr.  What's-his-name,  that  fat  German 
beersoak,  Mr.  —  yes,  that's  it,  Hartleben,  that 
Pilsener-Goethe ;  he'll  be  just  what  you  want. 
He's  the  chap ;  the  uncle  of  all  German  poetry ; 
he's  the  chap  for  you.  .  .  ."  (Many  years 
afterwards,  Bierbaum  admitted  that  he  and 
Hartleben  had  been  both  friends  and  foes ; 
though  he  thought,  had  Hartleben  lived,  they 
might  have  stayed  friends.) 

The  poets  could  rage  as  they  would,  Stilpe 
was  not  to  be  moved  from  his  decision  to  avoid 
the  too  too  literary.  "  I've  been  appointed," 
he  declared,  "  to  amuse  Berlin  into  artistic  life, 
but  not  to  bore  it  with  literature.  The  object 
of  our  Hall  is  to  do  away  with  the  last  vestiges 
of  interest  in  all  this  literature  of  yours.  We 
want  to  make  the  people  of  Berlin  truly  aes- 
thetic. There  are  still  people  here  who  read 
books.  That's  got  to  stop.  There's  more  of 
the  lyric  in  the  lace  drawers  of  my  soubrettes, 
than  in  all  your  printed  works ;  and  when  once 
the  time  is  come  that  I  can  let  them  dance  with- 
out any  drawers  at  all,  even  you  will  realize 
that  it  is  superfluous  to  write  any  other  verses 
than  those  sung  on  our  stage.  Beautiful 
clothes,  beautiful  arms,  busts,  legs,  gestures  — 
those  are  what  count.  Evolve  dances  for  me; 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIERBAUM         139 

create  pantomimes;  solve  me  the  problem  of 
emancipation  from  tights  —  those  are  the 
things  I  need.  And  if  you  absolutely  have  to 
write  verses,  don't  forget  they  must  be  sung 
by  beautiful  girls  whose  corsets  do  not  embrace 
the  void.  .  .  ." 

In  spite  of  all  of  which  the  Momus  Music 
Hall  went  promptly  to  smash.  As  music-hall 
it  was  still  too  artistic;  as  art  it  was  still  too 
music-hally.  All  the  old  and  many  new  enemies 
of  Stilpe  helped  to  turn  the  first-night  into  a 
riot  and  a  fiasco.  The  backers  of  the  venture 
got  rid  of  Stilpe;  the  Hall  was  put  in  charge 
of  a  manager  of  the  old  type ;  and  Stilpe  took 
the  profits  paid  him  for  breach  of  contract,  and 
spent  it  in  riotous  living. 

When  next  we  hear  of  him,  he  is  enacting  an 
amazing  foreshadowing  of  certain  scenes  later 
made  actual  by  Wedekind;  he  is  performing 
at  one  of  the  cheaper  popular  music-halls  in  the 
suburbs.  He  gave  a  most  brilliant,  arresting, 
grotesquely  realistic  bit  of  music-hall  art.  It 
was  as  if  he  put  the  whole  tragi-comedy  of  his 
own  life  before  the  audience;  put  himself  out- 
side of  it,  beyond  it;  and  grinned  at  it,  at  the 
public,  and  at  himself.  He  came  out  as  a  be- 
sotted, filthy,  ragged  thing  of  the  gutter;  a 
thing  that  had  once  been  a  great  poet.  If  you 
can  conceive  a  combination  of  Verlaine  and 
Whisky  Bill  appearing  at  the  Grand  Guignol 


140          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

in  caricature  of  himself,  it  was  something  like 
that  Stilpe  was  doing.  He  maundered,  as  he 
grabbed  a  cigar-butt  out  of  the  gutter,  that  he, 
too,  had  been  a  great  artist  once;  then  he  sud- 
denly flung  invectives  at  the  mob,  at  the  audi- 
ence, called  them  blind  hounds  that  did  not 
know  genius ;  cursed  them,  and  reviled  them  — 
until  the  audience  roared  in  applause.  And 
then,  to  complete  the  picture,  this  sodden  ruf- 
fian hanged  himself  in  full  view,  flinging  mor- 
dant mutterings  from  him,  as  he  tied  the  noose. 
A  ghastly  show  was  this  that  Stilpe  gave.  .  .  . 
And  one  night,  he  hanged  himself  in  earnest. 

THROUGH  many  curious  artists  and  their 
brain-children,  through  Villon  and  through 
Wilde,  Wedekind  and  Stilpe,  you  may  trace  the 
thin  red  streams  of  vice  and  music  flowing  to- 
gether. "  For  each  man  kills  the  thing  he 
loves."  Stilpe  had  loved  only  Art  and  himself. 

No  more  terrible  descent  into  hell,  by  way  of 
the  literary  temperament,  has  been  painted  in 
our  time.  If  Henry  Harland  and  W.  J.  Locke, 
in  English,  let  their  ironic  prose  play  lovingly 
about  the  merely  charming  qualities  in  certain 
immortal  vagabonds  of  life,  Otto  Julius  Bier- 
baum  in  Stilpe  once  and  for  all  revealed  the 
mordant  tragedies.  Nor  could  you  call  its  most 
fantastic,  most  grotesque  pages  exaggerated. 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIERBAUM         141 

Wedekind  has  himself  lived  out  many  moments 
of  Stilpe's  career,  and  in  some  of  the  pages 
which  he  wrote  about  journalism,  as,  for  in- 
stance, in  his  play  "  Oaha "  (1909),  he  was 
even  more  bitter  than  Stilpe. 

What  gives  the  novel  "  Stilpe  "  its  perma- 
nent value,  however,  is  its  accurate  prophecy 
and  program  for  the  Uberbrettl'.  As  we  have 
seen,  it  was  not  many  years  after  the  flamboy- 
ant and  obviously  satiric  pronunciamento  of 
Stilpe  that  a  group  of  the  younger  German  ar- 
tists did  actually  undertake  such  a  scheme. 


OF  the  many  delightful  lyrics  which  thrilled 
through  the  Uberbrettl'  and  which,  as  has  been 
said,  set  to  haunting  melodies,  still  linger  here 
and  there  for  our  delight,  Bierbaum's  are  the 
ones  I  must  try  to  have  you  appreciate.  For 
these,  as  I  cannot  too  often  repeat,  first  started 
me  upon  this  inquiry  into  the  sources  of  the 
new  blood  coursing  through  German  art;  and 
these  remain  imperishably  for  the  world's  de- 
light. 

Once,  I  vowed  that  next  to  the  man  who  tried 
to  explain  the  lyric  the  biggest  fool  was  he  who 
tried  to  translate  it.  A  Maxim  explains  in  hun- 
dreds of  pages  what  poetry  is;  another  dis- 
cusses :  What  Is  Art ;  and  so  the  limits  of  folly 
fade  daily.  If,  now,  I  betray  this  fine  artist, 


142          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

Bierbaum,  who  has  most  gracefully  been  the 
minstrel  of  most  of  modernity's  moods,  I  can 
always  fall  back  upon  that  eternal  prop  of  all 
immortal  fools:  I  mean  well.  You  who  read, 
if  you  do  not  know  German,  conspire  to  my 
folly ;  it  is  to  illumine  your  opportunity  to  en- 
joy  Bierbaum  that  the  coming  crimes  occur. 
Perhaps  my  awful  versions  of  the  lovely  intan- 
gible ballads  of  Bierbaum  will  force  you  to 
learn  German ;  then  you  will  see  the  full  extent 
of  my  massacre,  and  then,  indeed,  I  will  have 
accomplished  the  great  thing,  for  you  will  be 
able  to  enjoy  him  in  the  original,  no  matter 
how  much  you  despise  his  translator. 

The  note  of  sheer  melody  was  not  all  that 
Bierbaum  had,  or  he  could  not  so  typically  have 
voiced  the  sentiment  as  well  as  the  gaiety  of  his 
countrymen.  Yet  artistic  melody  is  what  is  so 
rare  in  the  world  of  lyric  expression,  and  it  was 
just  that  note  in  him  which  simply  cried  aloud 
for  musical  setting.  Song  upon  song  in  that 
part  of  his  "  Irrgarten  der  Liebe,"  called  sim- 
ply "  Lieder,"  has  been  sung  all  over  Germany, 
and  if  I  have  chosen  this  one  or  that  one  it  is 
not  because  they  are  better  than  their  fellows, 
but  simply  because  I  found  myself  able  to  trans- 
fer some  tiny  hint  of  their  charm  into  English. 

To  contrast  such  a  ballad  as  "  Rieke  im 
Manover  Singt,"  for  instance,  with  Liliencron's 
"  Die  Musik  Kommt,"  is  to  see  at  once  the  dif- 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIERBAUM         143 

ference  between  the  two  personalities:  Bier- 
baum  never  allowing  melancholy  to  oust  the 
grace  of  his  expression;  Liliencron's  eternal 
sadness  of  the  North  flinging  always  something 
of  a  shadow  over  his  merriest  pretensions. 

Dozens  of  these  Bierbaum  songs  have  been 
sung;  and  just  the  singing  quality  in  lyrics  is 
as  impossible  to  impart  as  it  is  to  define.  There 
was  hardly  a  mood  of  truly  German  sentiment 
that  he  did  not  sing,  and  always  with  charm, 
never  with  absurdity.  If  I  love  one  ballad  bet- 
ter than  another  it  is  "  Der  Alte  Orgelmann 
Singt :  "  in  which  the  quick  grace,  the  sponta- 
neous gaiety  and  mischief  remain  as  intangible 
as  star-dust,  yet  some  notion  of  which  you  may 
still  glean  from  this  version,  which  I  call  "  The 
Old  Hurdy-Gurdy  Man  Sings  " : 

Oft  enough,  when  I  was  young, 
Love  and  I've  together  sung 
Youth's  chief  song:    Philandering, 
Best  prerogative  of  Spring. 

Now  a  boudoir  heard  the  song, 
Now  a  garret.     Never  long, 
Never  tiresome  is  Love's  game 
When  your  partner's  ne'er  the  same. 

So  we  lived  our  student  days, 
Gay  and  careless  of  our  ways 
So  they  led  us  to  the  girls.  .  .  . 
Wisdom  hath  no  greater  pearls. 

Now,  oh,  Lord,  I'm  gray  and  old; 
Youth  is  gone;  my  fires  are  cold; 
Not  a  monk,  prepared  to  die, 
Is  so  harmless  now  as  I. 


144          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

And  of  all  those  lovelorn  rhymes 
Hardly  one  remains  that  chimes 
Mourning  bells  above  the  sod 
Where  once  Youth  and  Beauty  trod. 

Sadly  now  this  crank  I  turn, 
While  my  tears,  hot,  bitter,  burn; 
And  the  airs  all  seem  to  say: 
See  this  sinner,  once  so  gay! 

And  when  I'm  too  tired  to  churn, 
Then  it's  yon  old  wench's  turn: 
Laura,  once  the  toast  of  town, 
Now  a  hag  in  ragged  gown. 

She,  too,  played  the  very  deuce, 
Living  fast  and  loving  loose; 
Now  she  plays  the  piper  fair, 
Strumming  ditties  over  there. 

Young  folks,  take  advice  from  me: 
Sane  and  safe  your  loves  must  be; 
Health  and  strength  should  be  your  dower 
Intact  to  the  marriage  hour. 

Marriage-beds  alone  should  be 
Ante-rooms  to  infancy; 
Youthful  license  costs  one  dear: 
See  me,  wheezing  chestnuts  here! 

For  no  marriage  hurts  as  hard 
As  to  be  a  gutter-bard; 
Hurdy-gurdies  and  their  wage 
Are  no  port  for  one's  old  age. 

Now,  however,  one  tries  to  give  you  hint  of 
the  singing  spirit  in  this  stuff,  contemplation  of 
the  result  makes  for  despair.  From  the  very 
opening  lines, 

"Einst  in  meinen  Jugendjahren 
Hab  ich  Liebe  viel  erfahren  .  .  ." 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIERBAUM         145 

to  those  peculiarly  individual  stanzas  equivalent 
to  the  fifth  in  my  version : 

"Von  dem  ganzen  Lie-la-lieben 
1st  kaum  ein  Gedicht  geblieben 
Das  erbarmlich  klagt  und  klingt 
Und  Erinnerungen  singt." 

and  to  the  eighth: 

"  Sie  auch  hat  es  toll  getrieben 
Mit  dem  gottverfluchten  Lieben, 
Darum,  hor  es,  Publikum, 
Dreht  sie  das  Harmonium." 

one  might  as  well  attempt  to  weigh  the  romance 
of  a  summer  moon. 

Again  there  is  the  "  Lied  des  verlassenen 
Lehmann's  "  with  its  delicious  humor  and  its 
inevitable  melody,  which  even  to  the  ear  unac- 
quainted with  German  must  be  apparent  from 
such  stanzas  as: 

"  Ich  hab  ein  schones  Madchen 
Gehabt; 

Das  hat  mich  mit  viel  Liebe 
Gelabt. 

Ach  Gott,  wie  war  sie  niedlich, 
Oh,  Gott,  wie  war  sie  nett! 
Ich  kaufte  ihr  aus  Rosenholz 
Ein  Himmelbett. 

"  Ich  kaufte  ihr  auch  Kleider 
Und  Schuh; 

Die  UnterrSckchen  machten 
Frou-frou. 

Sie  war,  beim  Himmel,  sauber 
Und  reizend  anzusehn, 
Es  konnte  mit  ihr  jeder  Prinz 
Zum  Tanze  gehn.  .  .  ." 


146          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

This,  like  half  a  hundred  others,  was  sung  all 
over  Germany,  to  a  most  catchy  air.  The 
humor,  the  melody  and  the  charm  all  fade  in 
adaptation;  yet  must  you  be  given  a  hint  of 
the  whimsies  in  it.  Suppose  we  call  it  "  The 
Forsaken  One's  Song." 

A  most  delightful  damsel 

Was  mine; 

She  taught  me  love  was  more  than 

Divine. 

Good  Lord,  she  was  so  lovely! 

Oh,  Lord,  and  such  a  queen! 

I  bought  for  her  a  mission  bed, 

And  stained  it  green. 

I  bought  her  many  dresses 

And  shoes. 

Her  skirts  all  made  most  charming 

Frou-frous. 

There  was,  by  heav'n,  no  neater. 

Young  person  near  or  far; 

She  could  have  danced  with  any  King 

Of  Kandahar. 

And  then  love  turned  me  crazy, 

For  soon 

I  took  her  to  the  parson's, 

I  —  loon ! 

She  never  did  forgive  me 

That  I  misjudged  her  so: 

She  left  me  for  the  first  best  man 

That  asked  her  to. 

That  was  the  very  devil, 

I  swear! 

I  tore  in  rage  my  whiskers 

And  hair. 

That  scoundrel  now  has  those  frou-frous 

I  bought  that  faithless  queen; 

He  even  has  the  mission  bed 

That  I  stained  green. 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIERBAUM         147 

You  think  I  ought  to  curse  her? 
Oh,  no! 

Why  curse  a  rose  for  be- 
ing so? 

She  simply  was  for  marriage 
Not  talented  at  all; 
Love's  variet^  just  chanced  to  be 
Her  little  all. 

So  may  she  to  the  devil 

Go  spin, 

I  do  not  give  a  farthing 

Of  tin; 

I'm  watching  from  the  stalls  here 

Who  all  the  others  are: 

No  less  than  five  she's  had  so  far  — 

Hallelujah! 

The  note  of  regret  enters  often  enough,  of 
course,  as  in  the  "  Musterknaben  Klaglich 
Lied,"  with  which  the  first  edition  of  the  "  Irr- 
garten  "  opened : 

"  Manchen  Wein  hab  ich  getrunken, 
Manchem  schonem  Kinde  bin 
Ich  verliebt  ans  Herz  gesunken; 
Jetzt  geht  alles  niichtern  hin, 
Abgezirkelt,  abgemessen, 
Und  das  ist  des  Liedes  Sinn: 
Ach,  vergossen,  ach  vergessen ! " 

The  sense  of  which  we  may  attempt  thus,  as 
"  The  Good  Young  Man's  Lament  " : 

Of  wine  I've  had  my  fill  and  more, 

And  many  a  lovely  maid  has  lain 

With  my  heart  knocking  at  her  own  heart's 

door  — 

But  now  all's  sober,  safe,  and  sane, 
Measured  by  rule  like  so  much  cotton, 
And  —  here's  the  wherefore  of  this  song's 

refrain : 
Wasted!    Gone,  forgotten! 


148          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

Goblets  brimmed  with  purple  wine, 
Bosoms  bared  to  shame  the  snow, 
Lovelorn,  liquor-laden,  —  mine 
All  of  pleasure's  fiercest  glow; 
Mine  the  right  to  ride  upon 
Rapture's  highway  here  below.  .  .  . 
All  forgotten,  wasted,  gone! 

Solitude's  now  mine  o'  nights; 
Emptily  my  cellars  gape; 
Never  to  the  old  delights 
Can  my  spirit  find  escape;  — 
Virtue's  signboard  has  been  pasted 
On  my  door.     Behold  the  crepe: 
Gone,  forgotten,  wasted! 

Shall  I  never  more  know  rapture? 

Never  more  find  dreams  in  drink? 

Out  upon  you,  Virtue!   You  have  wrapt 

your 

Thongs  so  tightly  that  I  shrink 
From  the  halo  that's  my  lot. 
Saints  are  sour  old  chaps,  I  think! 
Wasted!    Gone!    Forgot! 

You  can,  I  think,  out  of  even  this  feeble  echo- 
ing, catch  something  of  that  in  Bierbaum's 
singing  which  made  his  period  come  to  realiza- 
tion that  in  him  the  spirit  of  the  old  German 
Minnesingers  had  come  again.  If  in  the  main 
it  was  the  voice  of  his  nation  that  sang  in  him, 
now  and  then  we  come  upon  airs  that  belong  to 
this  or  that  peculiar  province  of  it;  as,  for 
instance,  in  the  "  Jeannette  "  songs  from  the 
charming  "  Washermaiden's  History,"  where 
the  robust  romance  of  student  days  in  Munich 
is  more  charmingly  set  forth  than  anywhere 
else  in  German  writing.  Indeed,  those  scenes 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIEEBAUM         149 

may  well  be  set  beside  the  similar  beauty-pages 
in  Hewlett's  "  Little  Novels  "  where  the  Italian 
girls  make  so  much  color  and  music  as  they 
wash  the  clothes  in  the  river.  For  your  serious 
moods  there  was  stuff  in  plenty  in  this  little 
volume ;  whether  you  were,  with  the  author,  an 
admirer  of  "  Rosen,  Goethe,  Mozart,"  or  cared 
to  express  this  or  that  philosophy,  this  or  that 
sophistication,  this  or  that  naivete.  For  me, 
always,  the  utterest  delight  will  lie  in  the  un- 
rhymed  "  Hoher  Besuch,"  though  I  realize 
clearly  that  it  appears  to  go  against  my  belief 
that  melodious  lyric  singing  is  the  only  excuse 
for  poetry.  But  those  lines,  addressed  "  To  the 
fair  Unknown  "  are  as  graceful  as  anything  of 
Dobson's,  and  the  picture  of  the  Unknown  that 
Von  Recnicek  drew  when  the  poem  first  ap- 
peared in  Simplicissimus  completes  for  me 
many  memories  and  emotions  that  do  not 
fade. 

Before  we  turn  away  from  this  man's  sing- 
ing, which  most  adequately  expressed  the  Ger- 
many of  to-day,  we  must  mention  with  some- 
thing of  a  smile,  in  which  Bierbaum  would  be 
the  first  to  join,  the  lines  called  "  Der  Lustige 
Ehemann." 

"  Ringelringel  rosenkranz, 
Ich  tanz  mit  tneiner  Frau, 
Wir  tanzen  um  den  Rosenbusch, 
Klingklanggloribusch, 
Ich  dreh  mich  wie  ein  Pfau." 


150          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

Which,  mere  happy  nonsense  as  it  is,  can  be 
given  in  equally  absurd  terms: 

Ring  around  a  rosebush, 

I  dance  me  with  my  wife; 

We  dance  around  the  rosebush; 

Klingklangglorybush ; 

We  spin  like  tops  through  life. 

The  world  that's  somewhere  round  about 

May  stand  upon  its  head; 

We  do  not  give  a  tinker's  curse! 

No,  if  the  world  would  disappear, 

We  would  not  care  a  red ! 

It  was  this  song  which  came,  later,  to  haunt 
Bierbaum  like  a  bad  dream.  It  had  been  set  to 
music,  and  a  special  dance  arranged  for  it ;  and 
Germany  took  it  to  its  lowliest  heart.  There 
is  an  amusing  passage  in  the  "  Yankeedoodle- 
trip,"  published  just  before  Bierbaum  died, 
telling  of  how  in  the  train  a  man  fixed  Bier- 
baum with  his  gaze  and  then  began  to  whistle 
the  "  Lustige  Ehemann  "  incessantly.  He  had 
seen  the  author's  portrait  somewhere,  and  he 
was  determined  to  let  him  know  that  he  knew 
him.  And  the  conversation  that  resulted,  in 
which  the  stranger  complimented  Bierbaum  by 
comparing  him  to  a  certain  music-hall  favorite 
of  the  day,  was  nothing  less  than  delicious  for 
the  reader,  though  it  drove  Bierbaum  to  change 
his  compartment.  "  You  have  just  such  a 
funny  face  as  Otto  Reutter,"  allowed  the  stran- 
ger, and  Bierbaum  said  he  ought  to  wait  until 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIERBAUM         151 

he,  Bierbaum,  was  really  doing  his  best.  And 
he  got  out,  wishing  he  had  never  written  those 
lines. 

Even  out  of  that  little  incident,  we  may 
draw  a  comparison;  where  is  the  balladist  in 
English  whom  a  casual  stranger  in  a  train 
would  recognize? 


MENTION  has  already  been  named  of  the 
happy  faculty  Bierbaum  had  for  artistic  as  well 
as  human  enthusiasms.  No  man  of  letters  of 
his  time  did  more  to  further  all  other  artists  in 
Germany  who,  like  himself,  were  engaged  upon 
severing  old  and  hateful  bonds.  For  sculpture, 
painting  and  music  he  came,  time  after  time, 
into  an  arena  filled  with  ancient  enemies.  Even 
without  considering,  specifically,  his  many  valu- 
able Monographs  on  Artists,  we  find  the  variety 
of  his  appreciations  written  into  his  lightest 
ware,  his  verse.  Dedications  are  to  such  as 
Franz  von  Lenbach,  Meier-Graefe,  Arno  Holz, 
Von  Wolzogen,  Franz  Blei,  Peter  Behrens,  Max 
Dauthendey,  Hugo  Salus,  Hugo  von  Hoff- 
mansthal,  T.  T.  Heine,  Gustave  Kahn,  Her- 
mann Bahr,  Paul  Scheerbart,  Franz  Stuck, 
Liliencron,  Hartleben,  Felix  Mottl,  Fritz  von 
Uhde,  Hans  Thoma,  Richard  Strauss  and  many 
others.  Producing  so  many  songs  as  he  did,  it 
was  inevitable  that  some  of  them  should  be  on 


152          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

rococo  or  baroque  formulas;  some  of  them 
were  merely  clever  versification  of  cosmopolitan 
philosophy ;  but  in  the  residue  there  was,  as  we 
have  seen,  so  much  gold  that  the  bits  of  tinsel 
may  easily  be  forgiven. 

As  novelist  Bierbaum  latterly  veered  towards 
a  style,  as  in  his  stories, — some  of  them  adapted 
from  the  French  of  Gustave  Kahn,  —  which 
sacrificed  spontaneity  and  most  of  the  essential 
charm  of  his  personality.  Out  of  his  collected 
tales  published  under  the  title  "  Sonderbare 
Geschichten,"  the  memorable  ones  are  still  those 
witty  fragments  that  he  had  sent  forth  many 
years  before,  as  the  "  Annamargreth "  and, 
particularly,  the  "  Muthige  Revierforster." 

Hartleben  himself  never  wrote  a  more  deli- 
cious anecdote  than  this.  The  delicacy  of  its 
satire  had  not  the  faintest  trace  of  malice  in  it, 
so  that  even  if  the  still  living  Prince  Regent  of 
Bavaria  had  read  the  yarn  he  could  not  have 
done  other  than  laugh  at  it.  Bierbaum's  skill 
in  sheer  craft  is  singularly  discovered  in  this 
story;  to  set  down  in  the  most  graceful  and 
unobjectionable  manner  an  incident  which  in 
bald  recital  could  never  have  left  the  smoking- 
room  was  nothing  less  than  a  triumph.  The 
manner  in  which  the  courageous  gamekeeper 
solves  the  situation  that  has  been  embarrassing 
the  entire  court  and  nonplussed  all  the  courtiers, 
is  nothing  less  than  masterly,  and  as  long  as 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIERBAUM         153 

memory  serves  me,  the  gamekeeper's  speech, 
beginning :  "  Wie  war's  denn,  meine  Herr- 
schaften  .  .  ."  and  His  Majesty's  recognition 
of  the  good  man's  quick  and  homely  wit,  be- 
nignly expressed  in  his :  "  Ja,  meine  Herren,  das 
Volk,  das  Volk!  .  .  .  Es  ist  eine  schone  Sache 
um  das  Volk !  .  .  ."  will  remain  to  keep  laugh- 
ter alive. 

APART  from  his  triumphs  as  a  troubadour, 
it  is  in  his  capacity  as  an  ironist  of  life,  an 
observant  traveler  through  nature  and  through 
art,  that  Bierbaum  is  highest.  It  was  under 
him  that  all  the  green  and  yellow  youthfulness 
of  other  tongues  was  brought  into  Germany; 
his  Insel  first  told  about  Walter  Pater,  and 
Ernest  Dowson,  and  Beardsley,  and  Wilde,  and 
Arthur  Symons,  to  mention  only  a  few  English 
artists  out  of  a  larger  international  crew. 
Wherever  he  went  (and  he  came  to  renew  in 
middle-age  the  habitual  wander-years  of  all 
German  students)  he  found  the  fine  and  indi- 
vidual points  of  landscape,  manners,  and  the 
arts.  Wherever  there  was  fighting  to  be  done 
for  the  cause  of  youth  and  youthful  art,  there 
Bierbaum  led.  You  have  only  to  turn  the  pages 
of  The  Island  again  to  see  that.  It  was  in  1899, 
with  Alfred  Walter  Heymel  and  R.  A.  Schroe- 
der,  that  Bierbaum  started  that  magazine,  and 
to  hint  the  international  scope  of  it  you  will 


154          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

find  in  it  work  by  Vallotton,  by  Nicholson,  in 
pencil,  and  by  Gustave  Kahn,  Ernest  Dowson, 
Arthur  Symons,  H.  G.  Wells,  Oscar  Wilde,  and 
many  others  in  pen.  A  little  collection  from 
The  Island  came  eventually  to  be  issued  in 
pocket-form  as  "  The  Island  Book "  (Insel- 
Buch),  and  it  is  interesting  to-day  to  note 
therein  work  by  Detlev  von  Liliencron  and 
practically  all  those  other  minstrels  already 
named  in  my  pages;  the  prologue  to  Wede- 
kind's  "Earth  Spirit"  (Erdgeist) ;  and  a 
characteristic  poem  by  Rainer  Maria  Rilke. 
That  was  in  1902,  and  to-day  —  as  you  are 
presently  to  find  —  it  is  to  Rilke  that  the 
formal  art  of  German  versification  is  admitted 
to  have  reached  its  deftest  point  to-day.  Noth- 
ing that  had  art  in  it  was  foreign  to  Bier- 
baum. 

ABOVE  all,  as  traveler,  and  teller  of  tales  of 
travel,  he  told  you  what  was  best  of  all:  him- 
self. You  went,  as  you  read  those  charming 
pages  of  his  in  the  "  Sentimental  Journey  in  a 
Motor  Car "  and  the  "  Yankeedoodletrip," 
a- journeying  into  his  own  personality,  and  that, 
at  last  scale  of  all,  is  the  greatest  test,  and  the 
completest  failure  or  fullest  triumph  of  all. 
The  great  men  of  letters  have  all  done  that: 
Stevenson,  Lamb  and  Montaigne  might  pretend 
to  lead  us  into  this  or  that  region  of  fact  or 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIERBAUM         155 

speculation;  what  they  really  gave  us  was  an 
intimate  excursion  with  Stevenson,  Lamb  and 
Montaigne.  Bierbaum  is  of  that  fine  company. 
In  all  his  work  there  was  a  real  personality ;  it 
showed  nowhere  so  much  as  in  his  monographs 
on  this  or  that  artist,  and  in  his  many  pages  of 
travel. 

A  troubadour,  singing  his  own  country  and 
his  own  soul;  a  traveler  initiating  us  into  his 
own  vigorous  personality ;  that  was  Otto  Julius 
Bierbaum,  and  it  is  just  such  men,  and  condi- 
tions to  permit  their  success,  that  English  let- 
ters need.  The  country  that  arrogates  to  itself 
a  democratic  title  is  the  last  to  allow  liberty 
to  the  individual  in  art.  Such  a  career  as  Bier- 
baum's  had  been  impossible  in  America. 

While  in  the  two  paramount  volumes  of 
travel  by  Bierbaum  we  are  ostensibly  motored 
and  guided  from  Germany  over  the  Brenner 
Pass  into  Italy,  down  it  and  across  it,  and  over 
the  St.  Gotthard  home  again;  then  several 
times  led  from  Florence  to  Munich  and  back 
again,  a-foot,  a-car,  and  a-train ;  and  even- 
tually made  partakers  of  one  of  those  collect- 
ively conducted  Mediterranean  cruises  so  fa- 
miliar to  American  globe-trotters ;  the  real  ex- 
cursion, the  real  joy  is  always  the  intimacy  with 
Otto  Julius  that  the  journey  gives. 

If  travelers  the  world  over  would  only  read 
those  pages !  Not  that  they  contain  new 


156          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

truths,  but  that  they  so  thoroughly  emphasize 
the  old  one  that  journeys'  ends  are  the  journeys 
themselves;  that  not  to  arrive,  but  to  enjoy, 
is  the  object  of  travel.  Bierbaum  in  his  "  Sen- 
timental Journey  in  a  Motor  Car,"  which  was 
his  first  volume  in  that  sort,  never  tired  of  hit- 
ting that  pedal.  Since  his  mode  of  travel,  by 
motor  car,  was  then  (1902)  still  uncommon,  he 
had  what  might  have  seemed  a  hard  task  to  any 
other  than  a  poet  and  a  fine  humorous  spirit, 
namely,  to  instil  sentiment  into  the  record.  The 
result  remains  a  triumph  of  art  to  this  day; 
with  Octave  Mirbeau's  description,  "  La  628," 
of  a  tour  into  Belgium  and  Germany,  this  is 
the  only  book  about  a  journey  of  this  sort  that 
ranks  as  serious  art;  there  is  nothing  in  Eng- 
lish to  compare  with  these. 

If  we  may  not  go  through  Italy  with  Goethe, 
let  us  do  it  with  Bierbaum.  Often  enough,  too, 
the  latter  points  reverently  to  the  greater  poet 
and  philosopher's  footsteps  and  the  illumination 
that  he  gave.  I  cannot  stop  to  hint  the  thou- 
sand charms  of  this  book,  its  delightful  ironic 
reflections  upon  the  ways  of  English  and  Amer- 
ican travelers,  in  Rome  and  Venice  and  Flor- 
ence ;  its  sarcasm  at  the  expense  of  the  inartis- 
tic efforts  to  modernize  such  towns  as  Florence 
—  pages  that  would  delight  my  friend,  and 
Florence's  best  friend,  Riccardo  Nobili,  who  so 
vigorously  has  fought  these  abominations  in  his 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIEEBAUM         157 

town !  —  and  its  most  romantic  extraction  of 
sentiment  from  even  the  most  unlikely  places; 
—  to  do  that  would  be  to  come  near  to  trans- 
lating the  whole  book.  His  page  upon  the  im- 
mortality of  Rome,  despite  its  ruins,  as  the 
heart  of  all  our  modern  culture,  should  be  read 
by  all.  There  is  a  page  upon  the  insufficiently 
distributed  talent  for  leisure  that  might  serve 
as  warning  to  many  of  us  now  upon  the  verge 
of  nervous  prostration. 

There  are  illuminating  allusions  to  the  Ital- 
ian Carducci's  popularity,  to  Richard  Dehmel, 
to  German  sculpture  —  Bierbaum  declared 
Hellmer*s  Goethe  in  Vienna,  and  the  Hillebrand 
fountain  in  Munich  to  be  the  finest  specimens 
in  the  German  countries  —  and  to  Munich, 
which,  after  many  years  and  places,  always 
took  first  place  in  the  author's  heart.  "  With 
all  its  defects,  the  most  artistic  German  town," 
he  wrote,  "  the  town  of  artistic  youth,  the  free- 
est  town,  the  town  of  the  freshest  air,  in  ozone 
and  art." 

Of  all  the  many  glimpses  of  himself  and  his 
sincerities  as  a  craftsman,  I  must  at  least  take 
this  fragment  (from  page  79  of  the  1906  Mar- 
quardt  edition  ) : 

"  I  see  more  than  ever,  all  these  shibboleths 
and  *  tendencies  '  are  of  no  account :  each  of 
us  can  win  to  his  artistic  heaven  in  his  own  way, 
so  only  he  has  sincerity  and  force.  Ancient  or 


158          MASKS  A:ND  MINSTRELS 

modern  —  all  that  matters  nothing  —  as  long 
as  the  thing  itself  is  genuine.   .  .   ." 

(Pursuit  of  this  volume  in  a  paper  edition  is 
in  itself  one  of  my  pleasantest  memories.  A 
penitential  period  spent  in  lifting  the  heavy 
"  boards  "  of  English  and  American  books  long 
ago  drove  me  to  the  point  where  I  avoided  that 
type  elsewhere  whenever  I  could.  But  this  par- 
ticular Bierbaum  book  eluded  me  for  years ;  in- 
deed, it  was  so  popular  that  edition  after  edi- 
tion was  exhausted,  after  it  first  appeared  in 
1903.  Not  until  last  summer  in  Wiesbaden  did 
I  find  a  copy  of  the  1906  paper  edition,  to  which 
much  kindred  matter  had  been  added,  and  a  new 
title :  "  Mit  Der  Kraft,  Automobilia  "  applied. 
My  return  to  the  dear  old  Vierjahreszeiten  Inn 
with  that  soiled  but  uncut  volume  under  my  arm 
was  a  triumphal  procession  that  every  true  col- 
lector of  sensations  will  appreciate.) 

EVEN  more  than  in  that  first  travel  volume 
do  we  glean  from  the  last  book  published  before 
his  death  vivid  glimpses  of  himself.  Whether 
he  is  expressing  his  reasons  for  loving  Venice 
more  than  any  other  town  in  the  world,  or  tell- 
ing a  few  home  truths  about  the  traveling  ways 
of  his  own  countrymen  or  the  voices  and  man- 
ners of  Americans,  or  exclaiming  again  against 
the  vandalisms  committed  in  Florence  under  the 
banner  of  modernity,  it  is  always  Bierbaum  who 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIERBAUM         159 

most  interests  us  in  it  all.  Italian  towns,  he 
reminds  us,  are  feminine:  Rome  is  a  stern  ma- 
tron ;  Naples  a  cosmopolitan  cocotte ;  Venice 
a  Lorelei  set  over  the  Adriatic;  and  Florence 
—  just  a  lovely,  lovely  lady.  One  or  two  frag- 
ments from  the  vast  store  of  riches  in  this  vol- 
ume, "  Die  Yankeedoodlef  ahrt,  und  Andere 
Reisegeschichten,"  I  would  extract  for  you. 

This,  on  D'Annunzio :  "  Every  sort  of  mega- 
lomania is  his.  Without  it  he  would  be  noth- 
ing but  a  brilliant  decorator.  One  may  say 
that  in  him  megalomania  takes  the  place  of 
genius." 

This,  on  a  new  undertaking  of  the  painter, 
Franz  Stuck,  "  No  theme  for  tricksters,  but  for 
a  proper  heavyweight  of  art.  And  as  his  artis- 
tic biceps  are  on  a  par  with  his  physical,  I  do 
not  doubt  that  it  will  be  a  work  full  of  power, 
and  also  of  beauty,"  must  inevitably  recall  what 
George  Moore  wrote  of  Whistler,  how  his  art 
might  have  been  otherwise  had  his  physique  been 
more  robust. 

On  one  feature  of  the  abominable  moderniza- 
tions in  Florence,  this :  "  Thos.  Theodore  Heine 
(the  caricaturist)  touched  the  '  modern  '  pal- 
aces of  Florence  in  his  peculiar  telling  way 
when  he  put  this  question  to  Otto  Erich  Hart- 
leben,  as  they  were  passing  some  of  those  mon- 
strosities, *  Tell  me,  Herr  Hartleben,  these  are 
artificial  palaces,  aren't  they  ?  '  " 


160          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

The  ruins  of  Baalbek  called  forth  this: 
"  Again  and  again  I  had  to  think  of  Nietzsche. 
This  world  of  ruins  would  be  the  proper  temple 
for  his  Zarathustra,  and  this  air  the  proper  at- 
mosphere for  his  spirit.  To  read  him  here  — 
what  an  experience !  " 

Of  Dostojewski:  "As  in  Baalbek  Nietzsche 
appeared  to  me,  so  in  Jerusalem  Dostojewski. 
And  if  I  tried  to  figure  to  myself  the  Nazarene 
himself  .  .  .  always  he  appeared  to  me  in  the 
furrowed  features  of  the  great  Russian;  but 
more  youthful,  more  erect,  more  passion- 
ate .  .  ." 

Finally  there  are  the  passages  that  reveal  the 
author  himself.  He  is  revealed  in  his  love  for 
Italy,  his  regret  for  the  Italianization  of  Tyrol 
south  of  Bozen,  his  affection  for  the  beauties 
that  line  the  Brenner  Pass,  and  his  enduring 
passion  for  Tuscany.  There,  in  Fiesole,  in  the 
Villa  Bardi,  surrounded  by  memories  of  Arnold 
Boecklin,  he  spent  many  of  the  happiest  of  his 
later  days.  Between  Fiesole,  over  Florence, 
and  Pasing,  outside  Munich,  he  found  not  only 
the  artist  but  the  humanity  in  him  best  com- 
forted. His  wife  was  of  Tuscany,  and  charm- 
ing are  all  the  countless  allusions  to  her  scat- 
tered through  this  last  travel-book  of  his. 

For  years  before  the  end,  Bierbaum's  health 
had  been  none  of  the  best.  Full-bodied  though 
he  was  in  build,  he  would  seem  to  have  suffered 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIEEBAUM         161 

from  nerves  as  much  as  any  American.  We 
should,  to  be  sure,  remember  that  there  are  no 
longer  any  national  or  provincial  boundaries  to 
either  diseases  or  art.  Exactly  what  these 
young  men  of  Germany  have  accomplished,  in 
song,  and  play,  and  pictures,  is  to  remove  old 
parochial  limitations,  to  make  their  work  inter- 
national. When  I  say,  then,  "  as  nervous  as 
any  American,"  I  do  but  repeat  an  old  formula 
for  the  comprehension  of  those  not  yet  fully 
alive  to  the  internationalism  of  the  physical  and 
spiritual  modern  world.  About  nerves  and  ar- 
tists Bierbaum  had  made  this  admission,  as 
lately  as  1907,  in  "  Leaves  from  Fiesole " 
(Blaetter  aus  Fiesole) : 

"  Of  artists  I  have  known  only  three  who 
are  not  nervous:  Stuck,  Gulbransson,  Lilien- 
cron." 

No  need  to  explain  Stuck  or  Liliencron  here. 
Gulbransson  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of 
the  latter-day  artists  who  have  made  German 
caricature  take  international  rank.  His  por- 
traits of  his  contemporaries  rank  with  the  work 
of  such  men  as  Leandre,  or  La  Jeunesse,  or 
Max  Beerbohm. 

If  a  chapter  on  neurasthenia  is  possible  as 
a  delight,  Bierbaum's  is  that  chapter.  It  was 
in  that  chapter  he  recommended  several  curative 
employments,  the  most  charming  of  which  was: 
"  Listen  to  old  music.  Mozart  will  always 


162          MASKS  AND  MINSTEELS 

bring  reason  into  you.  To  be  unhappy  while 
listening  to  Mozart,  —  that  would  be  too 
shameful ! " 

In  the  pages  on  Tyrol  we  get  much  of  the 
real  O.  J.  B.  It  was  in  Castle  Englar  —  none 
saw  the  fun  of  calling  that  old  ruin  a  castle 
more  than  our  author  himself !  —  that  he  spent 
much  of  his  later  life  of  actual  creation.  He 
wrote  in  "  From  Fiesole  to  Pasing  " : 

"  Englar,  the  pinnacle  of  my  poetic  sins. 
There  I  wrote  no  less  than  two  novels,  three 
volumes  of  stories,  a  large  monograph  on  art, 
and  two  stout  Annuals  full  of  verse  and  prose  — 
to  say  nothing  of  lesser  stuff." 

One  presumes  that  "  Prince  Kuckuk "  was 
one  of  the  novels,  and  the  "  Strange  Tales  " 
among  the  stories.  It  was  in  those  latter  vol- 
umes that  the  satire  called  "  Schmulius  Caesar  " 
occurs,  of  which  he  was  to  write  later,  in  1908, 
a  passage  of  which  followers  of  arts  and  crafts 
should  take  note: 

"  Venice  was  not  itself  for  me  that  time ;  the 
Naager  family  was  lacking.  .  .  .  Having 
painted  that  good-humoredly  caricatured  por- 
trait which  you  will  find  in  my  fantastic  satire, 
*  Schmulius  Csesar,'  it  will  be  only  fair  if  pres- 
ently I  publish  a  serious  chronicle  of  the  Naager 
family.  That  would  be  in  form  of  a  mono- 
graph on  Franz  Naager,  the  strongest  and 
richest  decorative  talent  of  our  time.  ." 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIEEBAUM         163 

That  monograph  Bierbaum  did  not,  as  far 
as  we  know,  live  to  write. 

Delightful  are  all  those  passages  in  which 
Bierbaum  makes  fun  of  the  impression  of  dig- 
nity that  his  externals  managed  to  create.  The 
passages  on  the  humor  of  being  called  "  Pro- 
fessor "  cannot  but  appeal  to  all  Americans 
who  have  heard  the  titles  Major,  Colonel, 
Judge,  etc.,  bestowed  in  return  for  a  piece  of 
silver.  His  page  upon  the  good  Dame  Staffler, 
of  Bozen,  who  insisted  on  calling  him  Professor, 
is  full  of  the  most  charming  comedy.  In  the 
same  town  of  Tyrol  lived  a  good  woman  who 
gave,  each  year  that  Bierbaum  stepped  into  her 
shop,  a  new  addition  to  the  population ;  it  was 
she  who  inquired  of  him: 

"  And  has  the  professor  any  children  ?  "  He 
had  to  admit :  No.  "  But  of  course,"  she  an- 
swered, "  the  professor  would  have  no  time  for 
that."  And  he  left  the  shop  with  a  realization 
that  it  was  possible  to  look  too  wise,  even  for  a 
professor. 

The  thousands  of  Americans  who  are  by  this 
time  on  terms  of  almost  impudent  familiarity 
with  the  Atlantic  would  find  Bierbaum's  story 
of  the  journey  to  Egypt  and  the  Holy  Land 
full  of  direct  interest.  It  was  a  German-Amer- 
ican steamer,  and  the  opportunities  for  observ- 
ing American  manners  were  infinite.  His  fel- 
low countrymen,  too,  engaged  our  author's 


164          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

sarcasm  no  little;  and  if  I  had  not  loved  him 
before  I  could  do  so  for  nothing  else  than  his 
condemnation  of  the  insufferable  plague  of 
brass-bands  on  shipboard.  Wherever  he  went, 
whatever  he  saw,  he  voiced  the  poet  and  the 
masculinity  in  himself,  and  it  is  the  amalgam 
of  all  these  fine  things  that  his  readers  gain. 
Whether  he  was  with  his  wife  in  Monte  Carlo, 
gambling  absurdly  —  that  page  is  one  of  the 
happiest  he  wrote  in  his  last  years !  —  or  ga- 
zing on  the  tourist-ridden  temples  of  Egypt,  or 
enjoying  the  Florentine  sunshine,  the  Italian 
peasant,  or  the  Bavarian  citizen  —  he  was  al- 
ways genial,  full  of  humor,  and  full  of  human- 
ity: the  essential  voice  of  what  was  best  in  his 
German  land. 

Physically,  also,  Bierbaum  notably  expressed 
the  new  Germany  that  it  has  taken  so  long  for 
other  nations  to  realize.  Words  can  sketch 
external  things  but  faintly;  yet  may  they  hint 
the  relation  between  idea  and  outline. 

Detlev  von  Liliencron,  for  instance,  phys- 
ically as  well  as  artistically,  typified  the  para- 
mount military  character  of  his  period.  He 
sang  of  battles,  of  love  and  of  death  and  of  his 
country ;  in  his  gayest  music  there  was  always 
something  of  Northern  melancholy.  Bodily  he 
fulfilled  that  idea.  Had  he  not  been  so  much  a 
poet,  and  therefore  keen  of  humor,  he  had  been 
the  typical  martinet  in  uniform.  The  strong 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIEEBAUM         165 

Northern  countenance,  the  waving  mustache 
made  even  the  short  stature  of  him  seem  com- 
manding. He  was  the  officer  in  glittering  uni- 
form long  after  he  had  become  a  country  mag- 
istrate, and  he  retained  many  of  the  personal 
mannerisms  of  the  officer.  He  used  those  man- 
nerisms, indeed,  often  enough  as  a  mask  in 
places  where  the  air  of  "  literature "  became 
too  wanton  for  his  taste.  He  looked  the  sol- 
dier. Short  but  erect ;  fierce  of  visage  —  they 
used  to  paint  his  mustache  dipping  into  wine- 
cups,  but  that  was  largely  a  libel !  —  he  was  the 
Prussian  officer  at  a  time  when  all  Germany 
worshiped  at  that  shrine.  In  Hartleben,  on 
the  other  hand,  we  have  the  mixture  of  the 
good-natured,  ease-loving  German  citizen  and 
the  bohemian.  Hartleben  was  tall,  and  until 
he  was  puffed  up  with  too  much  food  and  drink, 
good-looking  in  a  graceless  sort  of  way.  Here 
was  the  slippered  ease  of  the  average  burgher; 
but  it  was  a  burgher  who  had  gathered  from  all 
the  far  coasts  of  Bohemia  the  liberties,  licenses, 
and  recklessnesses  there  in  vogue. 

In  Bierbaum,  finally,  as  he  looked  and  lived, 
you  might  find  much  of  the  German  type  of 
to-day.  From  England  and  from  France  in- 
fluences had  worked  subtly  into  the  national 
character,  as  well  as  into  its  art;  the  Prussian 
bourgeois  persisted  only  in  the  notions  of  in- 
observant aliens.  Something  of  Gallic  grace, 


166          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

something  of  international  tolerance  had  swept 
away  old  parochial  limitations  of  spirit.  Bier- 
baum's  stocky,  stout  stature;  his  round  good- 
humored  face;  his  short-sighted  eyes  always 
behind  pince-nez  or  spectacles;  his  carelessness 
of  externals,  and  triumphant  charm  of  person- 
ality, held  many  of  the  essentials  of  what  to-day 
is  best  in  his  countrymen.  German  to  the  core, 
he  had  the  genius,  in  his  person  as  in  his  work, 
of  stripping  the  old  German  characteristics  of 
sentimentality  and  shabbiness  of  their  absurd- 
ity ;  he  was  a  German  who  was  also  a  man  of 
the  world;  he  had  the  ironic  view  of  life  that 
the  elder  parochial  Prussians  had  not;  he  saw 
the  faults  of  his  own  place  and  his  own  people 
as  well  as  those  elsewhere;  neither  church  nor 
state  awed  the  individual  paganism  of  modern- 
ity in  him;  he  could  laugh  at  emperors  and 
shatter  idols  in  all  the  robust  vigor  of  the  bar- 
barian ancestors  of  his  race,  but  he  did  it  with 
the  new  grace  and  wit  that  was  never  before, 
but  is  to-day,  typical  of  Germany.  Until  the 
last  years  Bierbaum  wore  a  tiny  stubby  mus- 
tache ;  whether  so,  or  clean-shaven,  he  looked 
to  the  general  eye  the  more  professorial,  we  do 
not  know ;  to  the  properly  seeing  eye  he  looked, 
always,  an  open,  frank,  and  humorous  soul. 

IN  a  fragment  of  autobiography  that  Bier- 
baum wrote  late  in  life  may  be  found  much  to 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIEEBAUM         167 

supplement  what  we  already  know  of  him.  His 
publisher,  Geo.  Miiller  of  Munich,  announced 
this  fragment,  "  Midway  "  (Mittwegs),  as  the 
beginning  of  an  exhaustive  curriculum  artis  that 
Bierbaum  had  under  way  and  meant  to  publish 
in  the  course  of  the  year  1909.  It  remains  a 
fragment,  yet  from  it  we  may  complete  our  pic- 
ture of  the  author. 

HE  told,  therein,  of  the  realistic  poetry  that 
followed  an  impassioned  love-affair  in  his  thir- 
teenth year;  how  he  wrote  verses  to  the  sun- 
burn on  his  lady's  nose.  If  that  was  not  real- 
ism, what  was?  At  any  rate,  the  itch  to  express 
himself  in  song  seems  to  have  been  in  him  from 
the  earliest  years.  He  thought  lyrically.  Some 
of  his  friends,  he  vows,  thought  like  district  at- 
torneys. That  led  him  to  reflect :  "  The  born 
artist  has  something  of  the  adventurer:  the 
drift  toward  liberty,  away  from  the  fetters  of 
society,  is  as  strong  in  him  as  the  drift  toward 
a  world  of  fancy.  He  who  has  it  not  in  him  to 
stake  his  all  on  Zero,  will  hardly  become  artist. 
In  spite  of  which  artists  can  easily  enough  be- 
come philistines.  .  .  ."  The  first  definite  influ- 
ences on  him  came  from  the  two  Russians, 
Gogol  and  Turgenieff,  to  whom  he  remained 
true  to  the  end.  The  diary  that  he  kept  in 
those  passionate,  sensitive  teens  of  his,  was  by 
his  side  when  he  wrote  "  Stilpe."  There,  surely, 


168          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

is  a  detail  as  illuminating  as  the  light  later  shed 
by  the  whole  history  of  the  Uberbrettl',  and  of 
Frank  Wedekind.  The  nearest  approach  to  an 
original  for  Stilpe  was,  however,  a  certain  fel- 
low student  of  Bierbaum's  in  the  town  of  Wur- 
zen,  where  he  went  after  the  Leipzig  period. 
Though  for  fifteen  years  Bierbaum  was  to  be 
a  lyric  singer,  it  was  the  anti-romantic  realiza- 
tions he  drew  from  that  Stilpe  model  which  kept 
him  from  entirely  drowning  in  the  lyric  wave. 
At  the  age  of  twenty  he  was  a  republican  in 
politics ;  that,  he  reminds  us,  was  for  the  youth 
of  that  period  as  much  a  matter  of  course  as 
for  the  twenty-year-old  of  to-day  to  be  a  disci- 
ple of  Nietzsche.  The  Alps  and  the  chance  to 
study  Russian  called  him  to  Zurich,  for  he  was 
determined  to  learn  Russian,  having  just  read 
Dostojewski's  "  Raskolnikow."  It  was  that 
book  which  left  him  immune  to  the  influence  of 
Flaubert  and  Zola ;  and  at  the  very  last  he  was 
able  to  say: 

"  To  this  day  Dostojewski  counts  for  me  as 
the  greatest  creative  genius  of  our  time  next  to 
Nietzsche." 

Unfortunately,  he  continues,  among  the 
things  he  had  learned  at  college  was  not  how 
to  be  studious.  His  effort  to  learn  Russian  was 
at  first  a  failure  because  he  was  more  interested 
in  the  personalities  of  his  teachers,  male  and 
female,  than  in  what  they  taught.  He  was  an 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIEEBAUM         169 

observer  and  dreamer;  he  had  no  intention  of 
becoming  a  writer,  yet  he  was  dreaming  and 
living  both  imagined  poetry  and  actual  experi- 
ence, and  all  this  came,  in  later  years,  into  his 
work.  That  half-year  in  Zurich  held  the  rich- 
est of  his  dreaming  days,  and  it  was  a  reservoir 
which  he  had  not  nearly  exhausted  when  he 
wrote  this  fragment  that  lies  before  me.  In 
that  dream  were  mingled  all  manner  of  ghosts: 
Madame  Adele,  and  la  belle  Chinoise;  Gott- 
fried Keller  and  Arnold  Boecklin ;  nymphs  seen 
from  the  old  hotel  Bauer  au  Lac,  and  the  great 
god  Pan  rustling  in  the  shadows.  .  .  .  Life 
never  again  held  such  vivid  dreams  for  him, 
and  never  again  were  mere  dreams  and  idleness 
to  come  again  to  such  rich  fruition.  .  .  . 

THAT  Bierbaum's  career,  short  as  it  was,  was 
rich  indeed,  these  pages  have,  I  trust,  shown. 
As  poet,  story-teller,  playwright,  critic,  and,  in 
short,  as  an  artist  interested  in  every  phase  of 
life,  he  had  made  himself  felt  more  than  any  of 
the  younger  men  of  his  generation,  and  he  had 
more  than  any  other  expressed  Germany. 

Although  the  very  year  he  died  there  was 
issued  a  brief  history  of  German  literature 
(Heinemann's,  Leipzig)  in  which  his  name  does 
not  even  occur,  the  summer  after  his  death, 
on  the  other  hand,  a  little  volume  of  selections 
from  his  work  appeared  in  the  Reclam  edition, 


170          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

sure  haven  of  what  the  plain  people  of  Ger- 
many have  made  classic ;  for  ten  cents,  for  six- 
pence, this  slight  essence  of  O.  J.  B.  was  thus 
put  before  the  populace.  The  scholiasts  of  his 
own  time  might  be  the  last  to  admit  him  to  high 
place;  the  German  people  had  put  him  there 
long  ago,  when  he  sang  for  them,  sang  their 
lives  and  their  loves,  sang  for  them  their  Ger- 
many. 

In  him,  more  than  any  other  of  our  time,  the 
new  Germany,  the  Germany  that  the  rest  of  the 
world  is  but  slowly  discovering,  found  full  ex- 
pression. In  that  Germany  parochialism  is  dis- 
appearing before  internationalism,  flavors  of  the 
Gallic  mingle  with  robust  and  homely  satire, 
grace  of  manner  join  with  forthrightness  of 
matter.  His  irony  was  of  his  time  and  his  race ; 
he  was  the  first  to  show  his  countrymen  how  to 
be  ironic  gracefully. 

IN  the  last  volume  published  before  his  death 
were  announcements  of  two  forthcoming  books 
of  Bierbaum's :  a  novel  to  be  called  "  Die 
Paepstin  "  (The  Female  Pope),  and  a  sump- 
tuously illustrated  edition  of  his  "  Lovely 
Maiden  of  Pao  "  (Das  Schoene  Maedchen  von 
Pao)  for  which  that  wonderfully  interesting 
artist,  Franz  von  Bayros,  was  to  do  the  pic- 
tures and  decorations.  Whether  "  Die  Paep- 
stin "  will  ever  appear  it  is  still  too  soon  (I 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIERBAUM         171 

write  this  ten  months  after  his  death)  to  say. 
To  mention  here  the  representative  books  has 
been  my  effort,  but  for  complete  bibliography 
I  have  not  tried. 

IT  has  been  hard,  throughout,  to  attempt 
anything  like  judicial  calm,  or  a  sober  array- 
ing of  mere  facts.  It  was  not  in  such  way  that 
he  had  sung  his  way  over  all  Germany,  until 
Germany  had  found  its  singing  self  again,  and 
it  was  never  in  such  way  that  he  had  affected 
me.  He  had  been  of  those  before  whose  spell 
one  is  content  to  waive  all  the  damnable  herit- 
age of  sophistication  and  cavil  that  the  cen- 
turies have  brought.  He  had  given  me  sensa- 
tions, stirred  emotions,  and  voiced  them  for 
me.  How  is  one  to  transmit  those  emotions 
to  others?  One  had  need  be  as  lyric  a  magician 
as  Otto  Julius  himself  was.  How  is  one  to  ex- 
plain to  others  what  it  was  in  this  man's  sing- 
ing which  brought  one  to  the  point  where  (as 
Bliss  Carman  put  it,  before  he  ceased  trying  to 
be  for  us  what  Bierbaum  actually  was)  one  was 
content  to 

"...  let  my  heart  grow  sweet  again, 
And  let  the  Age  be  damned  .  .  .  "? 

Whys  and  wherefores,  fortunately,  elude  the 
most  prosy  analyst  of  emotion.  All  that  can  be 
done  is  to  say :  This  man  moved  me. 


172          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

There  are,  in  life  and  literature,  gloriously 
enough,  moments  when  only  passion,  only  whim, 
only  instinct,  or  perhaps  even  only  prejudice 
survives  triumphant.  So  only  it  be  uncon- 
sciously engendered,  inborn  from  generations 
of  fine  taste,  or  builded  on  long  since  assimilated 
arts  and  truths,  the  individual  instinct  for  the 
noble  impressions  of  life  and  of  literature  can 
be  the  only  true  guide.  Whether  it  was  per- 
sonal whim,  personal  instinct,  or  sheer  luck  that 
first  led  to  the  delight  in  Bierbaum  is  inessen- 
tial; in  the  aftercount  all  was  justified,  and 
from  the  feeling  of  having  known  a  charming 
singer  came  realization  that  the  charming 
singer  was  the  most  typical  of  his  country's 
living  men  of  letters. 

That  we  are  no  more  able  to  say  "  living  " 
brings  me  to  my  final  confession  of  inability 
to  transmit  emotion.  The  feeling  of  loss 
that  came  with  news  of  his  death  is  not  easily 
passed  on.  It  was,  as  I  have  said,  in  this  year's 
Carnival.  In  Munich,  most  artistic  of  all  towns, 
that  period  is  still  full  of  casual  and  whimsical 
fantasy,  rather  than  of  municipally  "  ar- 
ranged "  artificialities  to  lure  tourists.  In 
Munich  I  was  holding  carnival;  snow,  song, 
dance,  merriment  and  masquerade  whirled  the 
days  away.  The  carnival  liaison  between  the 
burgher  element  and  the  art  element  in  Munich 
was  fascinating  to  observe.  And  just  then  I 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIERBAUM         173 

saw  a  tiny  volume  in  a  window  near  the  Karls- 
platz,  a  little  pocket-edition  (1904)  of  the  two 
carnival-plays  that  Bierbaum  had  written  for 
performance  by  the  students  and  the  artists  of 
the  town ;  the  title,  untranslatable :  "  Zwei 
Miinchener  Faschingsspiele."  You  may  imag- 
ine with  what  j  oy  I  made  the  li ttle  book  my  own, 
and  found  once  again  (I  did  not  know  that  it 
was  to  be  for  the  last  time  in  his  life)  the  note 
of  the  renewed  spirit  of  the  Proven9al  trouba- 
dours, and  of  wandering  students  carrying 
medieval  Latin  songs  abroad  into  the  world. 
For  the  very  first  of  these  little  plays  was 
called  "  German  Folksongs,"  and  its  perform- 
ance that  year  of  1904  may  be  counted  as 
something  more  than  merely  a  record  of  how 
Munich  celebrated  carnival  when  the  twentieth 
century  was  young;  it  remains  also  as  proof 
that  in  Bierbaum  not  only  carnival,  not  only 
Munich,  but  the  spirit  of  the  old  Minnesingers, 
the  spirit  of  modern  Germany,  found  embodi- 
ment and  voice. 

Within  the  week  that  saw  me  pocketing  the 
little  book  and  adding  it  to  my  fund  of  carnival 
joy,  I  had  talked  of  Bierbaum  to  his  publisher, 
Herr  George  Miiller,  who  somewhat  non-com- 
mittally  had  told  me  that  Otto  Julius  lay  ill  in 
Dresden.  And  again  within  the  week,  carnival 
still  gay  in  Munich  —  the  Munich  and  its  car- 
nival he  had  loved  so  well !  —  Otto  Julius 


174          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

Bierbaum    died,    February    2d,    this    year    of 
1910. 

But  we  can  say,  as  he  himself  had  but  shortly 
before  said  of  his  friend  Liliencron,  that  though 
the  mortal  part  of  him  is  gone  he  lives  as  surely 
as  before.  Mortally  he  may  sing  for  us  never 
again,  but  the  singing  that  he  gave  us  lives. 
If  when  the  news  came  to  me  I  felt  that  I  had 
lost  a  friend  whose  hand  I  had  never  touched, 
though  I  had  seen  it ;  that  we  had  all  lost  what 
was  mortal  in  one  of  the  most  charming  min- 
strels of  the  age;  I  also  felt  that  the  essential 
in  him  was  still  with  us,  and  that  I  could  truly 
call :  "  Auf  Wiedersehen !  "  to  his  spirit. 

THAT  he  lives,  and  will  live  even  more  sturdily 
as  the  years  pass,  there  will  not  much  longer  be 
need  to  contend;  even  those  who  tried  to  put 
him  among  the  mere  lightweights  of  letters  — 
because,  of  course,  he  entertained  you,  above 
everything;  and  the  narrow  souls  who  attempt 
authority,  since  they  can  do  nothing  else,  al- 
ways froth  fiercely  against  writing  that  is  read- 
able !  —  are  beginning  to  admit  that  he  was  the 
first  of  the  moderns  to  be  a  real  German.  Even 
this  year's  winner  of  the  Nobel  prize,  Paul 
Heyse,  at  one  time  in  the  opposition  against  all 
the  modernists,  came  to  admit  the  talent  of  this 
man. 

Whether  such  a  career  as   Bierbaum's   will 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIERBAUM         175 

ever  be  possible  in  our  tongue  is  doubtful  as 
long  as  those  who  dominate  the  situation  make 
it  almost  impossible  for  individualism  and  irony 
to  exist.  Bierbaum  himself  had  to  fight  against 
the  stagnation  and  stupidity  that  the  scholiasts 
imposed  as  the  literary  dogmas  of  his  day,  but 
he  had,  eventually,  the  support  of  a  public  that 
applauded  his  balladmongering  and  came  to 
respect  all  his  activities.  Even  in  England  such 
men  as  Bernard  Shaw,  Max  Beerbohm,  and  Gil- 
bert Chesterton  have  had  to  live  down  the  na- 
tional prejudice  against  a  man  of  letters  daring 
to  be  entertaining,  to  be  ironic,  to  be  himself. 
In  America  you  may  be  entertaining,  but  you 
must  be  innocuous  withal;  if  you  tell  ironic 
truths,  declare  your  personality  —  pagan,  phi- 
losophic, humanistic  or  whatever  it  may  be  that 
is  not  petticoated  or  puritanic  —  in  this  or  that 
artistic  medium,  you  risk  being  disdained  by  the 
merchants  in  control.  To  do  in  America  what 
Bierbaum  did  in  Germany:  to  write  ballads  for 
singing  in  public,  to  break  a  lance  against  every 
ancient  formula  to  be  found ;  that  was  to  court 
disaster.  Some  tried  it;  there  were  reckless 
lads  who  scattered  pamphlets  abroad  in  the 
land,  and  sang  songs  —  also  in  the  'nineties ; 
is  it  possible  that  Youth  has  been  asleep  ever 
since?  —  and  started  Independent  Theatres; 
they  gained  by  all  this  nothing  but  the  lasting 
resentment  of  the  offended  Olympians  in  thea- 


176          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

tre-land  and  book-land.  Those  who  were 
shrewd  played  the  game,  thereafter,  as  the  mer- 
chants in  charge  wanted  it  played;  if  they 
wrote  ironically,  it  was  about  people  and  things 
not  American ;  if  they  introduced  anarchs  of 
art  into  their  pages,  the  anarchs  were  European 
ones;  if  they  appreciated  individualism,  it  was 
not  American  individualism,  but  that  of  Stirner, 
or  Strindberg,  or  Henri  Becque,  or  any  other 
great  egoist,  or  melomaniac.  So  these  were  dis- 
tant enough,  it  was  safe  to  laud  them  and  use 
them  as  buttress  to  one's  own  reputation ;  but 
to  have  courage  for  one's  own  personality,  that 
was  nothing  less  than  suicidal. 

To  attempt  suicide,  then,  to  sing  as  one  must, 
to  fight  all  the  stale  and  hateful  old  intoler- 
ances that  plague  our  letters,  to  declare  the 
beautiful  wherever  one  sees  it  even  if  it  be  in 
what  the  overgoodly  decry,  to  assail  the  ugly 
though  it  appear  with  the  seal  of  all  the  ortho- 
dox, —  this  is  what  must  be  done  if  we  are 
ever  to  have  men  of  letters  of  the  stamp  of 
Bierbaum,  and  not  mere  merchantmen,  mere 
peddlers. 

I  know  of  only  one  book  of  minstrelsy  in 
America  that  sold,  against  the  nearly  fifty 
thousand  of  the  "  Irrgarten  der  Liebe,"  into 
something  like  three  thousand  copies,  yet  even 
that  proves  every  point  I  have  made  in  this 
chapter,  for  it  was  just  popular  singing  stuff. 


OTTO  JULIUS  BIERBAUM         177 

The  people,  to  whom  literature  for  literates  has 
no  appeal  at  all,  bought  it,  careless  what  the 
authorities  might  call  these  songs,  so  only  they 
voiced  their  own  emotions,  painted  their  own 
places,  and  made  the  world  a  little  melodious 
for  them.  Against  this  minstrel  type  the  An- 
drew Langs  of  literature  fulminate;  they  have 
no  patience  for  even  the  reckless  rhyming  of 
a  Byron.  It  is  such  lack  of  patience,  of  toler- 
ance, that  narrows  the  scope  of  literature  every 
now  and  again,  in  this  land  and  that,  until  it 
has  as  much  appeal  to  the  populace,  to  the  na- 
tion outside  of  scholiasts  and  snobs,  as  have 
to-day  the  deliberations  of  Venetian  doges. 

It  was  Bierbaum's  genius  to  be  artist  as  well 
as  balladmonger ;  what  he  voiced  for  his  coun- 
try and  his  period  he  so  sang  that  it  remains 
unblemished  for  posterity. 


VIII 

A    FEW    FORMALISTS 

BEFORE  passing  on  to  those  whose  work  has 
put  the  modern  German  drama  into  a  position 
of  international  influence,  let  us  consider  briefly 
some  lyric  craftsmen  who,  coming  from  the  same 
sources  as  those  most  typically  German  singers 
we  have  been  considering,  are  now  in  more 
formal  ways  continuing  along  the  path  first 
blazed  in  the  'eighties.  Having  done  with 
those,  there  are  two  curiously  eccentric  emana- 
tions from  the  Variety-style  that,  as  we  have 
seen,  formed  a  phase  of  Bierbaum's  career: 
one,  the  most  versatile  and  various  entertainer 
of  his  time :  Ernst,  Freiherr  von  Wolzogen ;  the 
other,  the  most  bizarre  expression  of  drama  in 
our  time:  Frank  Wedekind.  Through  the  lat- 
ter, we  shall  pass  to  other  dramatists  with  whom 
our  day  must  reckon. 

IT  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously  there  is  not  to-day  a 
lyric  poet  in  Germany  who  does  not  trace  back 
to    the    line    Nietzsche-Liliencron.      The    line 
178 


A  FEW  FORMALISTS  179 

branched  in  many  directions.  It  gave  us  those 
spontaneous  voices  of  Germany  for  the  Ger- 
mans already  sufficiently  emphasized  in  this 
book ;  and  it  also  gave  us,  to  mention  the  most 
essential  in  our  present  contention,  Richard 
Dehmel,  Stephan  George,  Richard  Schaukal, 
Max  Dauthendey,  Rainer  Maria  Rilke,  and 
Gustav  Falke.  If  I  find  their  more  conscious 
singing,  in  artistry,  not  so  truly  in  tune  with 
the  idea  of  Minnesingers,  of  troubadours,  or 
even  border  balladists,  they  none  the  less  deserve 
record  in  even  the  most  prejudiced  account  of 
modern  German  lyric  song. 

FOR  the  sake  of  the  obviousness  of  the  con- 
trast against  the  spontaneity  of  the  singer  last 
considered,  Bierbaum,  let  us  begin  with  Stephan 
George.  If  Bierbaum  was  ecstatic,  George  is 
static;  if  Bierbaum's  style  was  the  style  of 
humanity,  George's  is  that  of  the  cloister. 
Since  we  must,  in  approaching  this  poet,  deal 
in  some  of  those  labels  which  never  find  a  stick- 
ing-place  on  a  proper  minstrel's  lyre,  let  us  say 
that  he  is  formalist,  an  artist  in  decorations. 
With  him  it  is  manner  more  than  matter,  and  he 
has  the  effect  of  manner,  which  Bierbaum  in  his 
most  rococo  moments  seldom  had.  Here  is  the 
antithesis  of  all  natural  and  social  thinking 
and  feeling ;  here  is  the  setting  into  the  symbols 
of  poetry  the  aristocratic  eclecticism  learned 


180          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

from  Nietzsche,  without  his  vastness  of  com- 
prehension. We  have  already  referred  to  Arno 
Holz  and  Johannes  Schlaf.  The  reaction 
against  naturalism  in  lyric  form  found  its  leader 
in  George. 

If  others  tried  always  to  come  as  close  as  pos- 
sible to  expression  of  actual  feeling  and  actual 
experience,  George  was  concerned  only  with  the 
form  and  the  frame  of  his  verse. 

Even  here  you  might  find  a  line  back  to 
Goethe  in  his  later  period,  the  period  of  Helena 
and  the  West-Oestliche  Divan.  George's  atti- 
tude was  that  of  being  poised  not  only  over 
emotion  itself,  but  also  over  himself  under  the 
influence  of  an  emotion.  He  was  not  concerned 
with  an  actual  world ;  his  poems  are  like  mystic 
gardens  swaying  above  our  solid  earth.  They 
are  above  sex  and  above  society.  Where  in 
Bierbaum  life  and  love  of  life  seemed  to  have 
reached  melody  as  spontaneously  as  the  lark 
reaches  it,  George  gives  us  outlines  and  pictures 
akin  to  the  antique  legends  of  Boecklin,  the 
etchings  of  Max  Klinger,  the  medieval  fantasies 
of  Thoma  or  the  vast  winged  creatures  of 
Sascha  Schneider. 

The  eulogists  of  George  have  always,  of 
course,  pointed  out  that  he  had  nothing  to  say 
to  those  who  asked  of  a  lyric  that  it  seem  to 
express  their  own  unschooled  emotions.  That 
it  was  possible  to  do  that,  yet  be  as  fine  a  stylist 


A  FEW  FORMALISTS  181 

as  any,  we  have  seen  in  the  case  of  Bierbaum. 
But  we  must  admit  that  Stephan  George  has 
striven  always  for  beauty,  for  his  interpretation 
of  the  beauty  of  poetic  art.  He  has  never  stood 
still ;  never  been  content  with  repetitions  of  old 
phrases  for  rhyming  emotions  often  too  facile. 
All  his  art  has  been  an  avoidance  of  that  in 
mere  balladry  which  deprived  it  of  the  right  to 
survive. 

If  natural  expression  is  a  happy  accident, 
decorative  art  is  well  considered  design.  If 
you  would  defend  the  decorative  artist,  you  may 
argue  that  his  conscious  embroidery  of  beauty 
upon  the  outward  form  of  life  is  very  acceptable 
in  an  age  when  appearances  are  often  ugly 
enough.  Aubrey  Beardsley,  the  English  pre- 
Raphaelites,  and  Stephan  George  are  all  ex- 
pressions of  revolt  against  the  too,  too  natural. 
George  is  eminently  stylist. 

Arno  Holz  had  outlined  the  program.  In  his 
own  style  he  had  thrown  over  all  forms  but  new 
ones  of  his  own.  His  notion  of  free  verse  came 
at  a  time,  1893,  when  French  free  verse  was 
already  well  under  way  and  discussion.  Holz 
remains  the  prophet,  the  program-writer,  per- 
haps, but  Stephan  George,  who  was  not  himself 
so  much  theorist  as  a  deducer  of  theories  from 
his  own  technical  achievements,  became  the  first 
great  instance  of  sheer  style  in  modern  German 
verse.  Holz  upset  old  forms;  George  renewed 


182          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

them  to  the  highest  possible  point  of  artistic 
technique.  Smoothness  of  rhythm,  of  metre, 
and,  in  a  word,  of  all  externals,  is  his  paramount 
quest. 

We  have,  as  result,  the  mood's  intention, 
rather  than  the  mood  itself.  Of  an  actual  emo- 
tion there  cannot  be  even  a  question.  Unless 
we  are  to  suppose  an  audience  so  sophisticated 
as  to  feel  emotion  from  the  spectacle  of  that 
self-contained  and  self-consuming  steady  flame 
which  in  George  represents  his  all  of  passion. 

One  of  his  typical  notes  is  in  such  a  poem 
as  "  The  Mask,"  in  a  sufficiently  representative 
volume,  "  The  Carpet  of  Life,  and  Songs  of 
Dream  and  Death  "  (Der  Teppich  des  Lebens, 
u.  s.  w.).  The  title  alone  tells  you  his  decorative 
view  of  life.  There  is  even  a  story  of  Henry 
James's  that  enforces  the  point.  "  The  Mask  " 
reminds  me  of  nothing  so  much  as  the  art  of 
the  late  Ernest  Dowson  in  England,  and  of 
Wilbur  Underwood  in  America.  It  is  an  effort 
to  paint  the  color  and  the  tragedy  of  carnival, 
the  wrinkles  under  the  mask ;  but  we  get  only 
the  effect  of  the  intention.  The  words  depict 
the  room  swaying  in  the  dance  of  the  silken 
puppets ;  the  fever  that  burned  beneath  one 
mask,  whose  wearer  saw  amid  the  whirling  of  the 
others  that  Ash  Wednesday  was  close  at  hand. 
.  .  .  The  words  were  there,  but  of  a  real  car- 
nival note  there  was  nothing.  Liliencron  or 


A  FEW  FORMALISTS  183 

Bierbaum  might  not  so  carefully  have  cata- 
logued and  outlined  the  room  and  what  it  held ; 
but  they  would  have  given  us  its  essence. 

The  case  of  Stephan  George,  stylist,  and  lit- 
tle else,  leads  to  the  belief  that  the  development 
of  national  and  super-national  German  litera- 
ture can  in  no  way  be  influenced  by  him.  He  is 
almost  a  reversion  to  the  aestheticism  of  that 
neuter  period  against  which  the  men  of  the 
'eighties  rebelled ;  though  he  is  far  beyond  them 
in  artistic  skill.  His  Hellenism  is  sexless,  anae- 
mic, so  refined  that  it  is  sterile.  Life  is  a  carpet 
of  wonderful  pattern  and  strange  figures  for 
him ;  but  there  is  not,  in  all  that  conception, 
any  procreation,  not  even  of  poetry.  His  poems 
about  men  and  women  might  as  well  be  about 
marble.  He  stands  outside  of  his  period,  and 
his  own  people;  his  is  an  isolated  case  of  rare 
individual  accomplishment;  yet  the  fact  that 
this  period,  and  the  German  people,  find  him 
voicing,  even  in  that  elaborate  lyric  etiquette  of 
his,  something  of  their  own,  has  its  value  for  us 
who  are  trying  to  watch  the  fading  of  parochial 
lines  from  national  character. 

Stephan  George  was  born,  1868,  in  Bingen 
on  the  Rhine.  He  traveled  in  England,  Swit- 
zerland, Italy,  France  and  Spain ;  studied  in 
Paris,  Munich  and  Berlin.  His  own  Rhineland 
has  seen  most  of  his  summers ;  Munich  or  Ber- 
lin his  winters.  His  books  of  verse  include: 


184          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

"  The  Year  of  the  Soul  "  (Das  Jahr  der  Seele), 
1898,  "  The  Carpet  of  Life,"  1899,  and  "  The 
Seventh  Ring"  (Der  Siebente  Ring),  1907; 
besides  a  number  of  translations  —  and  here 
you  have  a  key  to  his  artistic  attitude !  —  one 
being  a  rendering  (1901)  of  Baudelaire's 
"  Fleurs  de  Mai,"  others  being  versions  (1905) 
of  poems  by  Swinburne,  Rossetti,  Jacobsen, 
Verhaeren,  Verlaine,  Mallarme,  Regnier,  D'An- 
nunzio  and  others.  It  has  been  pointed  out  that 
George's  German  sometimes  sounds  like  trans- 
lated German,  even  though  its  purity,  as 
German,  is  without  blemish.  There  we  have, 
recurring,  the  trend  to  mystification  that  comes 
to  every  stylist.  I  recall  Bliss  Carman  once 
telling  me  in  defense  of  certain  opacities  of 
form  then  showing  in  his  style,  that  if  he  could 
write  in  a  foreign  tongue,  he  would.  There  we 
have  the  same  desire  that  Stephan  George's 
foreign-sounding  yet  impeccable  German  style 
discovers. 

That  negation  of  the  obvious  which  entered 
the  world  of  European  sensibility  with  the  work 
of  Schopenhauer  and  of  Wagner,  and  came 
forth  again  through  Nietzsche  and  Dehmel,  can 
also  be  seen  in  Stephan  George.  Life,  to  him, 
is  a  tapestry  as  of  Gobelin,  and  there  is  as  much 
blood  in  it.  Bloodless  and  sterile,  this  art  of 
Stephan  George  can  have  no  successors.  For 
those  who  are  conceiving  the  German  poetry  and 


A  FEW  FORMALISTS  185 

the  poets  of  the  future  one  must  look  elsewhere. 
Yet  it  would  be  hard  to  find  an  artist  more  per- 
fectly fulfilling  all  those  essentials  of  externals 
which  the  professional  critics  and  expounders 
of  poetry  demand.  If  poetry  could  be  pro- 
duced according  to  their  formulas,  Stephan 
George  would  be  a  considerable  poet. 

IT  is  in  Vienna,  always  keen  in  appreciation 
of  externals  and  etiquette,  that  Stephan  George 
stands  highest.  Mostly  Viennese,  indeed,  were 
the  contributors  to  Art  Pages  (Blaetter 
fiir  die  Kunst),  which  affords  a  fairly  clear  idea 
of  the  way  the  Nietzsche  influence  exerted  itself 
upon  the  mere  words  with  which  the  writers  of 
that  time  were  clothing  their  thoughts.  First 
physical  impressionism,  then  psychic  impres- 
sionism ;  finally  complete  reaction  from  the 
naturalists:  a  welter  of  mere  phrases.  It  was 
phrases  which  these  men,  Stephan  George  at 
their  head,  put  above  everything  else.  Karl 
August  Klein  was  the  publisher  of  Art 
Pages,  and  among  the  contributors  were,  of 
those  whom  I  am  to  mention  at  all,  Hugo  von 
Hoffmansthal,  the  dramatist,  and  Max  Dau- 
thendey.  Art  Pages  appeared  from  1892 
to  1904,  most  sumptuously  printed;  it  circu- 
lated to  all  intents  privately.  There,  again,  you 
have  the  exclusive  nature  of  this  sort  of  art. 

To  Hugo  von   Hoffmansthal  we  will  come 


186          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

later.  About  Max  Dauthendey's  work  I  have 
little  to  tell  you.  I  know  that  he  was  born  the 
25th  of  July  in  Wurzburg.  Tales  of  Asiatic 
life  in  a  collection  called  "  Lingam "  I  have 
read,  and  found  notable  more  for  style  than 
matter.  A  play  of  his  dealt  with  the  philan- 
derings  of  Catherine  of  Russia.  He  has  also 
achieved  some  humor,  notably  the  ballad  of 
"  The  Lady  and  the  Gramophone,"  which  is 
such  delightful  nonsense  as  to  atone  for  much 
mere  stylistic  prose  and  verse.  His  most  typ- 
ical verse  is  in  "  Weltspuk,"  in  which  the  picto- 
rial is  attempted  in  a  richly  decorative  manner, 
and  invested  wherever  possible  with  a  sort  of 
pantheistic  spirit.  The  poet's  intention  there, 
as  in  "The  Winged  Earth"  (Die  Gefliigelte 
Erde),  1910,  was  to  survey  all  earthly  things 
from  the  pinnacle  of  Parnassus  and  paint  the 
cosmic  view;  whether  the  intention  reaches  the 
reader  as  an  actual  effect  is  doubtful. 

IN  Rainer  Maria  Rilke  the  stylistic  attitude 
of  modern  German  poetry  reaches  its  most  per- 
fect form.  Bierbaum  appreciated  him,  as  he 
appreciated  so  much  that  was  fine;  a  Rilke 
poem  on  "  The  Three  Holy  Kings  "  appeared 
in  the  Island  magazine,  and  in  his  "  Yankee- 
doodletrip  "  Bierbaum  wrote  this,  as  touching 
the  point  of  view  from  which  he,  O.  J.  B.,  would 
regard  the  town  of  flowers,  Florence,  were  he 


A  FEW  FORMALISTS  187 

seeing  it  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  at  twenty 
years  of  age: 

"  I  might  see  it,  as  some  ten  or  twelve  years 
ago  Rainer  Maria  Rilke  saw  it  when  he  wrote 
to  me  about  it:  in  white  on  pale  blue  paper. 
But  I  am  afraid  R.  M.  R.  himself  would  no 
longer  see  it  like  that  to-day  .  .  ."  (He  went 
on  to  denounce  the  modernization  of  the  Floren- 
tine streets  and  palaces.) 

Rilke  sounds  the  monastic,  mystically  relig- 
ious note  as  well  as  the  aristocratic  and  the  in- 
tentionally obscure.  You  may  find  in  him  the 
German  equivalent  to  much  in  the  mystic  and 
monastic  tone  that  has  appeared  in  many  Cath- 
olic countries,  and  to  what  Francis  Thompson 
did  in  England.  His  view  of  life  turns  always 
into  himself.  The  artist,  he  declares,  is  only  he 
who  has  within  himself  something  deep  and  rare 
that  he  cannot  share  with  the  world.  He  avoids 
the  obvious  as  a  nun  avoids  the  world  and  its 
pleasures.  There  is  eroticism  in  Rilke,  but  it 
is  the  eroticism  of  a  cloistered  garden  where 
Parsifal  walks  in  white  silk,  and  where  tall  lilies 
listen  to  the  annunciation  of  Mary.  I  recall 
single  poems  of  his  printed  in  Jugend  in  the  last 
few  years,  that  were  as  if  some  of  the  most  blas- 
phemous ideas  of  the  late  Francis  Saltus  had 
been  treated  by  a  monk  whose  asceticism  had 
the  gorgeous  hues  of  an  old  missal.  There  is 
a  prose  book  of  his  that  bears  the  title :  "  Of 


188          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

the  Almighty,  and  others."  (Vom  lieben  Gott, 
und  andres. )  The  conclusion  of  his  poem  "  Fate 
o*  Women"  (Frauenschicksal)  runs  thus: 
"  She  simply  grew  old  and  went  blind,  and  was 
not  precious  and  was  never  rare."  That  prose 
version  of  mine  is  not  more  removed  from  the 
presumed  pattern  of  poetry  than  Rilke's  orig- 
inal. In  his  poem  "  Sacrifice  "  (Opfer)  he  re- 
fers to  "  the  altar  that  your  hair  has  lit,  and 
that  your  bosom  gently  crowns."  Even  these 
lines  may  give  you  a  notion  of  the  strange  re- 
moteness of  this  poetry. 

Rainer  Maria  Rilke  was  born,  1875,  in 
Prague,  of  an  old  and  noble  line.  A  lonely, 
musing  childhood.  At  ten,  his  parents  sepa- 
rating, he  went  into  a  military  training-school 
and  for  five  years  endured  the  tortures  of  an 
education  that  applied  the  same  level  to  all  tem- 
peraments. Neither  there  nor  in  the  several 
colleges  that  he  tried  after  1894  did  he  find 
what  he  sought.  In  1896  and  1897  he  was 
much  in  Munich;  went  thence  to  Berlin  and 
ventured  a  little  into  literary  circles,  but  soon 
retreated  into  his  inborn  anti-social  habits  of 
life.  The  poet  was  already  awake  in  him ;  the 
many  journeys  that  he  now  began  stirred  him 
still  further.  Florence  and  Fiesole  and  other 
Tuscan  towns  were  of  especial  revelation  to 
him.  Still  sharper  was  the  impression  which 
Russia  made  on  him.  For  long  he  lived  amid 


A  FEW  FORMALISTS  189 

the  vast  loneliness  of  nature  with  a  certain  set 
of  artists  in  Worpswede;  his  prose  volume, 
"  Worpswede,"  1903,  is  an  appreciation  of  that 
period  and  those  artists.  From  the  Worpswede 
band  he  turned  to  that  vast  solitary  figure,  the 
greatest  in  modern  sculpture,  Auguste  Rodin. 
Secluded  from  the  outer  world,  he  lived  close 
to  Rodin  in  Paris,  and  acted  as  a  sort  of  secre- 
tary to  him.  "  He  taught  me  everything,"  he 
declares,  "  that  I  did  not  know  before,  and  all 
that  I  knew  he  revealed  to  me  through  his  own 
placid  and  self-contained  life,  his  sure  and  im- 
penetrable solitude,  and  his  tremendous  concen- 
tration upon  himself."  Rilke  wrote  of  the  great 
sculptor  in  his  volume  "  Auguste  Rodin,"  1903. 
The  other  great  influence  on  Rilke  was  the 
Danish  writer,  Jens  Peter  Jacobsen. 

The  titles  of  Rilke's  books  tell  the  story  of 
the  ecclesiasticism  that  distinguishes  him  as  poet. 
He  has  never  seen  life  save  through  stained 
glass.  Note  this,  for  instance :  "  The  Book  of 
Hours;  of  monastic  life,  of  pilgrimage,  of 
poverty  and  of  death."  In  his  earlier  verses 
the  symbolism  of  Romish  doctrine  appears  as 
an  influence;  gradually  comes  sympathy  with 
older  mysticisms,  and  even  with  such  emotional- 
ists as  Chopin  and  Schumann;  eventually  he 
reaches  his  individual,  personal  note  of  monis- 
tic pantheism.  In  his  "  Book  of  Pictures " 
(Buch  der  Bilder)  the  Rodin  influence  can  be 


190          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

found.      That    book    is    perhaps    his    highest 
achievement. 

For  sheer  technical  skill,  modern  German 
verse  has  gone  no  farther  than  Rainer  Maria 
Rilke.  His  poetry  remains  noteworthy  if  we 
would  understand  the  various  facets  of  the 
modern  German  soul.  That  soul,  it  cannot  too 
often  be  pointed  out,  is  no  longer  parochial. 
The  wave  of  religious  mysticism  that  we  may 
trace  through  French  and  English  thought  and 
feeling  in  our  own  time  —  need  one  mention 
more  than  the  novels  of  Huysmans,  of  George 
Moore,  of  John  Oliver  Hobbes ;  the  poetry  of 
Francis  Thompson  ?  —  swept  through  Ger- 
many also,  and  found  welcome  and  acceptance 
there. 

IT  is  with  definite  purpose  that  emphasis  is 
here  given  the  poetry  of  Rilke.  There  are 
plenty  of  other  talented  Germans  in  this  vein 
of  letters  to-day,  with  whose  names  the  most 
careless  study  of  the  subject  will  familiarize 
you  —  Hugo  Salus,  Schaukal,  Franz  Blei,  etc., 
etc.  —  but  Rilke  typifies  for  me  the  farthest 
point  in  sheer  skill  which  has  so  far  been 
reached  by  these  men. 

These  perfect  artificers  may  sway  other 
poets,  they  can  never  sway  a  people.  Their 
continuing  experiments  in  new  and  strange  de- 
vices of  form,  and  style ;  their  calm  impersonal 


A  FEW  FORMALISTS  191 

reaching  toward  new  perfections  in  externals, 
may  interest  a  community  of  literates;  they 
can  never  sing  for  and  to  humanity  at  large 
anything  of  its  own  passion,  anything  of  the 
world's  ecstasy. 


IX 

RICHARD    DEHMEL 

THAT  we  may  close  with  a  return  to  what 
in  living  German  verse  most  vitally  carries  on 
something  of  the  minstrel's  note,  let  us  come  to 
Richard  Dehmel,  who  survives  from  the  day 
when  Nietzsche  first  moved  German  literature  to 
new  paths. 

Returning,  briefly,  to  that  little  collection  of 
"  German  Chansons  "  which  Bierbaum  first  put 
out  in  1900,  we  find,  besides  Dehmel,  several 
lesser  singers  who  must  be  mentioned  here  be- 
cause the  singing  note  distinguished  them  as 
much  as  mere  form  marked  those  whom  we 
traced  from  Stephan  George  to  Rilke.  They 
were:  Gustav  Falke,  Ludwig  Finckh,  A.  W. 
Heymel,  and  Rudolf  Schroeder.  The  last 
named  has  already  been  referred  to  as  one  of 
the  founders  of  The  Island.  Finckh  had  the 
manner  of  a  charming  courtier;  his  ballads 
were  aristocratic,  rather  than  German.  Schroe- 
der was  aesthetic  even  in  his  merriest  nonsense, 
and  his  grotesque  ballads  for  the  UberbrettP 
were  compared  to  decorations  by  Beardsley. 
192 


RICHAUD  DEHMEL  193 

Heymel  was  the  expression  of  youthful  unre- 
straint and  impudence ;  a  portrait-caricature  of 
him  exists  in  "  Prince  Kuckuk,"  as  has  already 
been  pointed  out.  He  visited  America  a  few 
years  ago;  as,  also,  did  Von  Wolzogen  late  in 
1910.  In  Gustav  Falke,  born,  1853,  in  Lue- 
beck,  we  touch  that  combination  of  merry  min- 
strel and  conscious  expounder  of  a  self-question- 
ing ego  most  strongly  typified  in  Dehmel. 

From  Liliencron  to  Falke  you  come  along 
the  line  of  least  resistance;  Falke's  drinking 
song,  "  Twenty  Marks  "  (Zwanzig  Mark),  is 
of  the  true  note  of  bibulous  balladry  in  the 
more  wine-bibbing  troubadours  whose  Carmina 
have  come  down  to  us  from  the  middle  ages. 
To  contrast  against  that  side  of  Falke  such 
a  poem  as  "  At  the  Masked  Ball "  (Auf  dem 
Maskenball)  is  to  see  the  range  of  his  sentiment. 
To  contrast,  again,  the  atmosphere  of  his  mas- 
querade against  "  The  Mask "  of  Stephan 
George  is  to  see  how  the  natural  note  surpasses 
always  the  posturings  of  the  most  precious  arti- 
ficers. 

IN  Richard  Dehmel  we  find  almost  every  color 
in  the  rainbow  of  modern  German  character. 
It  is  he  alone,  after  many  earlier  storms  and 
stresses  of  thought  and  sentiment  had  found 
lodgment  in  him,  who  was  strong  enough,  hav- 
ing known  and  felt  the  influence  of  Nietzsche, 


194         MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

eventually  to  follow  the  latter's  injunction: 
"  Be  what  thou  art !  "  and  to  forsake  him. 

Nietzsche's  great  poetic  genius  was  as  a  fire 
that  lit,  that  sparked  to  other  fires,  the  youth 
of  an  entire  period,  an  entire  continent.  You 
will  not  more  clearly  see  the  difference  between 
passion  and  ice  than  if  you  compare  Nietzsche 
with  the  American  Emerson.  The  one  a  great 
Slav,  full  of  power  and  passion  and  the  ecstasy 
of  poetry,  sweeping  like  a  prairie  fire  over  the 
European  peoples.  The  other  an  icy  Puritan, 
affecting  only  a  small  parish  of  disciples,  a 
narrow  circle  of  the  cultured,  in  a  country 
which,  by  the  very  slightness  of  its  cultured 
minority,  needed  more  than  any  other  some 
flaming  passion,  some  world-devouring  Napo- 
leon of  emotion.  The  pictures  are  still  true  to- 
day: Emerson  and  his  kind  were  parochial; 
Nietzsche  was  continental. 

There  is,  just  here,  a  vast  problem  that  looms 
upon  us,  were  we  not  now  concerned  only  with 
song  and  story  and  play.  All  that  to-day  pours 
into  the  United  States  is  Slav.  Is  the  Slav  to 
repeat,  there,  his  history  as  one  continent's 
bulwark  against  another  ? 

Nietzsche,  whose  genius  in  words  —  aside 
from  his  philosophy,  which  was  a  mere  emana- 
tion of  his  poetry  —  affected  a  continent,  was 
of  Slav  blood.  He  grew  up  in  the  Romanic, 
humanist  spirit. 


RICHARD  DEHMEL  195 

In  every  direction  he  revealed  the  impas- 
sioned fanaticism,  and  the  colorful  sensuous- 
ness  of  the  Slav.  His  was  the  truly  Romanic 
delight  in  the  outer  emblems  of  enchantment, 
in  the  sheer  music  and  resonance  of  words. 
German  characteristics  never  touched  him  but 
faintly;  his  proper  nature,  and  the  nature  of 
that  all-intoxicating  poetry  which  he  gave  his 
time,  was  Romanic,  Slav  of  the  Slavs. 

Richard  Dehmel  was  too  truly  German  to  feel 
more  than  passingly  the  influence  of  even  the 
great  Nietzsche,  the  Slav. 

RICHARD  DEHMEL  was  the  eldest  son  of  a 
gamekeeper.  He  was  born  in  1863  in  Wen- 
disch-Hermsdorf,  near  the  Spreewald,  within 
easy  distance  of  Berlin.  (The  Spreewalders,  it 
may  be  remarked,  retain  to  this  day  —  as  much 
as  is  possible  in  a  tourist-harried  world  —  in 
their  tiny  space  of  a  few  square  miles,  all  the 
characteristics  of  a  nation.)  These  "men  of 
the  Mark  "  consider  Berlin  as  an  alien  monster 
in  their  borders.  Dehmel  had  his  first  school- 
ing in  Kremmen,  his  next  in  Berlin.  In  those 
early  years  he  was  already  unorthodox,  and  was 
soon  in  conflict  with  the  orthodox  schoolmasters 
of  Berlin.  He  moved,  for  the  completion  of 
his  studies,  to  Danzig.  From  the  autumn  of 
1882  he  studied  philosophy  and  natural  science, 
working  his  way  meanwhile  by  editing  provin- 


196          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

cial,  and  even  sporting,  newspapers.  In  1887 
Leipzig  made  him  Doctor  on  account  of  an  es- 
say upon  Insurance.  From  then  until  1895  he 
was  secretary  of  a  German  underwriters'  asso- 
ciation. In  that  bureaucratic  air  he  learned 
much  self-control.  There,  too,  he  published  his 
first  volumes  of  verse.  After  seven  and  a  half 
years  in  official  harness,  he  determined  to  de- 
vote himself  entirely  to  his  art,  and  freedom 
for  it.  He  wrote  no  poetry  of  sorts  before  he 
was  twenty-two,  and  artistic  control  came  to 
him,  so  he  once  admitted,  only  with  twenty-four 
years  of  age ;  he  was  thirty-two  when  he  finally 
retired  from  his  office.  He  went  to  live  in  Pan- 
kow,  near  Berlin.  In  1899  he  separated,  ami- 
cably, from  his  wife;  with  her,  Paula  Dehmel, 
he  had  published  a  book  for  children  called 
"  Fitzebutze."  With  his  second  wife,  he  spent 
two  and  a  half  years  traveling  in  Italy,  Greece, 
Holland,  Switzerland,  and  England,  and  even- 
tually came  to  live  in  Blankenese  near  Ham- 
burg. 

DEHMEL,  as  artist  in  thought  and  expression, 
passed  through  many  periods.  Just  as  you  find 
in  him  the  minstrel  note  that,  melancholy,  north- 
ern though  it  is,  found  him  a  prominent  place 
among  the  balladists  of  the  "  German  Chan- 
sons," and  also  find  in  him  huge  problems  of 
passion,  of  sex,  and  of  society  in  the  large ;  so 


RICHARD  DEHMEL  197 

you  may  trace  in  his  career  as  artist  many 
transformations,  before  the  complete  and  indi- 
vidual character  appears. 

In  his  first  books  Schiller  and  Heine  still 
dominate,  though  Conradi  and  Nietzsche  al- 
ready appear;  the  influence  of  Liliencron  even- 
tually triumphs.  His  real  storm-and-stress 
period  is  expressed  in  his  volume  "  But  Love  " 
(Aber  die  Liebe),  1893,  which  flames  and 
smoulders  with  passion.  Here  is  the  brooding 
and  the  shame  of  adolescence,  the  tears,  the 
agony  and  the  ecstasy  of  a  man's  awakening. 
Love  is  an  abyss  of  melancholy  for  him  at  first ; 
out  of  his  struggle  in  that  abyss  he  comes  with 
something  of  recognition  for  its  finer  sides. 
In  "  But  Love  "  some  have  seen  influences  from 
Strindberg  and  Przybyszewski.  Dehmel  at- 
tacks the  sex  relations  with  all  the  fury  of  a 
northerner's  passion.  Then  came  poems,  plays 
and  fairy-tales,  all  marking  Dehmel's  progress, 
his  thought  upon  the  great  vital  man-and- 
woman  problems  of  life.  He  worked  in  all 
forms;  in  the  strictly  lyric,  in  the  larger  lyri- 
cism of  the  epic,  of  the  allegory,  the  novel  and 
the  drama. 

In  1903,  at  forty  years  of  age,  all  of  Dehmel 
thought  and  art,  that  had  so  long  been  in  fer- 
ment, went  into  its  final  melting-pot.  He  even 
took  most  of  what  he  had  published  up  to  then, 
lyric,  dramatic  and  epic,  and  remade  it  in  tune 


198          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

with  his  new  self.  The  jagged  edges  that  still 
remain  from  that  tremendous  effort  to  make 
uniform  what  had  marked  the  whims  and  pas- 
sions of  young  manhood  have  their  interest  as 
proving  the  futility  of  this  sort  of  rewriting. 

Dehmel's  passion,  what  some  have  declared  his 
eroticism,  is  saved  from  the  merely  physical  by 
its  prevailing  humanistic  virtue.  There  is 
something  northern,  something  intellectual, 
spiritual,  always  at  back  of  it.  He  goes  upon 
all  the  ways  of  love  that  he  may  find  at  end  of 
them  some  new  key  to  the  great  riddles  of  sex 
and  life.  He  has  the  passion  to  observe  life, 
the  passion  to  live,  and  the  passion  to  declare 
life;  he  has  no  reservations,  nothing  human  is 
vile  for  him ;  he  would  conceal  nothing,  but 
would  make  noble  and  beautiful  even  the  dark- 
est places  of  the  soul.  He  has  the  passion  for 
truth,  too ;  truth  as  he  sees  it ;  whether  he 
always  succeeds  in  making  the  reader  see  it  as 
truth  is  another  matter. 

Say  what  they  would  against  Dehmel's  in- 
ability always  to  express  as  greatly  as  he  felt, 
his  essential  Teutonism  was  undeniable.  He  was 
never  Don  Juan  without  being  also  Faust.  His 
eroticism  was  of  the  north;  he  put  his  cosmic 
problem  in  the  form  of  a  love-story ;  while  the 
more  southern,  Romanic  writers,  fashioned  their 
love-stories  to  seem  cosmic  problems.  One 
would  rather  not  believe  that  this  side  of  Deh- 


RICHARD  DEHMEL  199 

mel,  rather  than  larger,  finer  things  in  him, 
has  made  other  countries,  especially  France 
(through  the  Mercure  de  France,  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1910,  to  cite  one  sufficient  proof),  stamp 
him  the  most  vital  German  poet  of  our  day. 

He  paints  for  us  such  Venus  Transforma- 
tions as  surpass  for  erotic  color  and  boldness 
most  of  what  has  been  done  in  that  sort ;  at  the 
very  opening  of  his  "  But  Love  "  he  sketches 
himself  for  us  in  the  outlines  of  a  "  Bastard," 
product  of  a  female  vampire  and  of  the  God 
of  Light,  compelled  eternally  to  strive  upward 
out  of  a  slough  of  despond  toward  the  fairer 
gleam;  yet  we  must  ourselves  be  perverse  to 
find  perversity  in  him.  The  sombre  philosopher 
is  always  behind  his  fieriest  voluptuousness. 
He  fights  the  fight  of  freedom,  of  sex,  of  soci- 
ety; he  questions  the  old  formulas,  the  old 
compulsions  of  society,  of  wedlock ;  all  the  old 
repressions  of  the  individual  rouse  him.  The 
individual,  Richard  Dehmel,  whom,  throughout, 
he  sought  to  free  to  finest  expression  of  his  own 
self,  his  own  character,  was  none  the  less  the 
individual  of  many  deep  ancestral  tendencies, 
many  old  Germanic  qualities.  He  followed  the 
great  Slav's  mandate :  "  Be  who  thou  art !  "  and 
he  came  to  express  more  forcibly  than  any  other 
in  his  time  and  tongue  all  the  vaster  questions 
of  the  human  race:  marriage,  society,  and  the 
rights  of  the  individual. 


200          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

So  powerful  is  the  stuff  in  Dehmel's  work, 
that  the  art  of  its  expression  comes  only  sec- 
ondly to  consideration.  Yet  it  is  gradually  be- 
ing recognized  (especially  now  that  the  French 
have  pointed  in  that  direction)  by  many  who 
hitherto  stressed  only  the  thinker,  that  the  ar- 
tist is  also  considerable.  It  may  remain  true 
that  the  thinker  often  seems  to  obscure  the  ar- 
tist; Julius  Bab  (who  has  written  the  finest  of 
the  German  appreciations  of  Dehmel)  recalls 
Leo  Berg's  remark  that  Dehmel  "  loves  like  an 
analytic  philosopher,  and  philosophizes  like  a 
lover."  In  other  words,  his  passion  is  seldom 
without  artistic  self-consciousness. 

As  artist  it  was  the  lyric  words  of  Schiller, 
the  lovely  outlines  of  sonnets  by  Michael  An- 
gelo  that  first  seemed  the  pinnacles  of  poetry 
to  Dehmel.  Only  gradually  the  strong  sugges- 
tion from  Liliencron  led  him  to  express  himself 
and  his  own  thoughts,  his  own  life.  That  re- 
bellion of  the  'eighties  so  often  referred  to  af- 
fected Dehmel  toward  the  search  for  a  natural- 
istic, realistic  symbol  which  eventually  he  at- 
tempted in  his  "But  Love"  of  1893.  That 
book  paints  the  crisis  in  his  thought  as  in  his 
form.  He  moves  from  apparently  free  verse  to 
utter  formlessness,  from  translations  of  foreign 
style  to  the  first  efforts  in  a  final  expression  of 
simple  and  sincere  personality.  In  his  search 
for  a  style  of  his  own  he  transmuted  the  old 


RICHABD  DEHMEL  201 

Italian,  Cecco ;  the  modern  Spaniard,  Zorilla ; 
the  Pole,  Ujeski,  and  the  Chinese  Li-tai-po; 
and  particularly  those  French  singers,  each 
most  typical  of  his  time,  Villon  and  Verlaine. 
The  strongest  influence  of  all,  in  that  period, 
came  from  Strindberg;  not  only  poems,  but 
stories  and  dramas  of  Dehmel  reeked  with  that 
northern  bias. 

Not  until  1895,  in  "Leaves  of  Life" 
(Lebensblaetter),  did  the  individual  simple 
style  proper  to  his  thought  and  his  intentions 
appear.  In  tracing  Dehmel's  style  through  its 
tentative  periods  to  its  eventual  discovery  of  the 
poet's  proper  voice,  Julius  Bab  found  the  case 
typical  of  that  trend  away  from  the  musical  and 
toward  the  pictorial  which  he  declares  a  distin- 
guishing feature  of  latter-day  German  writing. 
So  that  what  in  earlier  years  had  kept  to  the 
musical  idols  which  Schiller  and  his  imitators 
worshiped,  now  went  over  into  the  similes  of 
Max  Klinger's  etchings.  (I  mention  this  com- 
parison largely  to  prove  that  this  trick  of  con- 
fusing and  mingling  the  arts  of  literature, 
painting  and  music  has  its  devotees  in  Germany 
as  well  as  London  and  New  York ;  it  is  one  of 
the  favorite  tools  with  which  the  more  shopworn 
of  the  modern  world's  critics  ply  their  trade.) 

The  keynote  of  Dehmel's  thought  and  art  is 
in  his  line :  "  To  laugh,  bleeding  with  wounds, 
—  that  is  living ! "  He  felt  always  the  great 


202         MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

deeps  of  woe  and  passion  in  the  world;  he 
strove  always  to  express  them.  He  strove  al- 
ways to  express  the  tragedy  of  the  individual 
seeking  to  justify  itself  relentlessly  in  a  relent- 
less world.  He  tried  to  force  the  whole  agony 
and  glory  of  the  cosmos  into  his  work.  Here, 
for  instance,  is  a  free  version  of  a  poem  of  his 
which  voices  his  own  outlook: 

"  And  man  would  be  happy  here  on  earth  — 
Do  you  know,  how  that  may  come  ?  "  —  "  Man, 
it  is  thyself  that  thou  must  train  —  Which  most 
will  read:  Man,  from  thyself  thou  must  ab- 
stain !  —  Beware  of  all  such  folk.  —  There's 
many  a  man  has  trained  himself  —  But  did  he 
build  a  real  Self?  —  No  man  yet  won  to  God  — 
Who  feared  God's  devils  and  their  rod."  —  "  All 
deeps  of  passion  I  would  sound  —  And  drain 
the  whole  world  dry  of  it  —  And  though  I  died 
for  it !  "  —  "  For  not  above  oneself  —  And  not 
outside  of  self  —  But  in  oneself  —  Almighti- 
ness  awaits  the  man  so  great  that  he  can  bear 
it.  .  .  ." 

Against  the  accusation  of  immorality  in  Deh- 
mel's  work  it  is  to  be  pointed  out  that  in  some 
five  hundred  poems  perhaps  ten  voice  brutally 
the  brutality  of  human  sexuality.  Dehmel  once 
ironically  informed  those  who  invariably  judged 
him  by  just  those  ten  specimens,  that  he  had 
finally  made  matters  easier  for  their  peculiar 
senses  of  taste  and  smell  by  arranging  all  those 


RICHARD  DEHMEL,  203 

verses  into  the  "  Transformations  of  Venus  "  so 
that  they  need  no  longer  search  through  all  his 
many  volumes  in  order  to  find  them  and  enjoy 
them. 

THAT  a  tremendous  singer  of  the  most  pas- 
sionate individualism  which  modern  German  lit- 
erature has  known  should  also,  for  his  lighter 
minstrelsy,  have  been  counted  among  the  bal- 
ladists  of  the  "  German  Chansons  "  is  significant 
of  the  place  which  that  Young  German  period 
must  ever  have  in  the  history  of  that  literature. 
It  nullifies  at  once  the  argument  that  these  were 
but  light  gentry.  No  more  gigantic  intentions 
were  ever  in  any  man's  work  than  in  Dehmel's. 
Yet  Dehmel,  too,  wrote  the  charming  stuff  for 
children  in  "  Fitzebutze  " ;  wrote  the  lovely  lyric 
of  the  "  Fruehlingskasper  " ;  wrote  that  song 
"  Toilette "  which  has  at  once  the  spiritual 
grace  of  passion  and  its  disregard  of  shame; 
and  wrote,  finally,  that  bit  of  music  and  irony, 
"  The  Twelve  Moral  Innkeepers  "  (Die  Zwoelf 
Sittsamen  Gastwirte).  This  ballad  paints  for 
us  the  poet  Liliencron,  and  the  man  Liliencron, 
so  deliciously  that  it  is  with  the  memory  of  it 
still  warm  that  this  effort  to  appreciate  Dehmel 
might  best  be  closed. 

The  young  Richard  Dehmel  owed  a  good  deal 
to  Detlev  von  Liliencron ;  something  of  that  he 
repaid  in  "  The  Twelve  Moral  Innkeepers  " ; 


204          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

and  in  the  later  enlarging  fame  of  the  older, 
larger  Richard  Dehmel,  with  his  brooding, 
moralizing,  northern  passion,  there  is  still 
something  that  starts  memories  of  the  Prussian 
officer,  the  poet,  Liliencron. 


MERE    ENTERTAINMENT 

IP  Richard  Dehmel  passed  on  to  a  point 
where  he  became  the  most  internationally  recog- 
nized thinker  and  poet  of  his  day,  there  remain 
from  the  Young  German  period,  or  have 
sprung  up  since,  many  pleasant  artists,  who,  if 
some  might  call  them  but  entertainers,  should 
none  the  less  be  mentioned  here.  Chief  of  these, 
and  far  more  than  a  mere  entertainer,  though 
suffering  from  mere  entertainment's  reputation, 
is  Ernst,  Freiherr  von  Wolzogen.  Before  we 
return,  through  him,  to  the  UberbrettP,  and 
with  him  to  the  present  day,  let  us  briefly  list 
some  of  those  other  writers  of  our  time. 

In  Germany  as  elsewhere  you  can  hardly 
throw  a  stone  to-day  without  hitting  a  novelist. 
On  Sudermann  you  may  find  so  much  elsewhere 
that  I  do  not  burthen  this  book  with  him.  Carl 
Hauptmann's  novel,  "  Mathilde,"  must  be  men- 
tioned. One  year  Gustav  Frenssen's  "  Joern 
Uhl  "  was  the  most  discussed  stofy  in  Germany ; 
another  it  was  something  of  Hermann  Hesse's. 
Seekers  after  entertainment  in  Germany  read 
205 


206          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

Heinz  Tovote  for  a  superficial  reflex  of  sophis- 
ticated boredom  (historically  he  has  value  only 
in  having  appeared  at  the  same  time  as  Her- 
mann Bahr)  ;  George,  Freiherr  von  Ompteda, 
for  education  in  military  and  civil  snobbery; 
Von  Schlicht  for  stories  in  humorous  treatment 
of  army  life;  and  Thomas  Mann  for  careful 
painting  of  genre.  In  "  Dead  Centre  "  (Am 
Toten  Punkt)  and  "  Prinz  "  Johannes  Schlaf 
again  tried  to  write  the  great  novel  that  Ger- 
many, with  all  its  neighbors,  annually  awaits. 

There  are  humorists  in  plenty.  Peter  Ro- 
segger  (born  in  1843)  painted  a  certain  peas- 
ant region  inimitably.  Such  serious  persons  as 
Fritz  von  Ostini  and  Ludwig  Fulda  have  not 
disdained  sheer  humor.  One  of  the  most  amus- 
ing writers  in  this  sort,  mostly  in  versified  form, 
is  Fritz  Oliven,  whose  pen  name  is  "  Rideamus." 
Librettos  of  his  for  Oscar  Straus'  music  include 
"  Die  Lustigen  Niebelungen  "  and  "  Hugdit- 
rich's  Brautfahrt,"  and  over  his  rhymed  pam- 
phlets, "  Willi's  Werdegang,"  "  Berliner 
Baelle,"  "  Die  Erfindung  der  Sittlichkeit "  and 
many  others,  Germany  has  been  laughing  for 
the  last  ten  years,  "  Willi's  Werdegang  "  hav- 
ing sold  to  the  eightieth  thousand. 

Paul  Scheerbart,  born,  1863,  in  Danzig; 
Karl  Henckell,  born,  1864,  in  Hanover;  Rudolf 
Presber,  1868,  in  Frankfurt;  Hanss  Heinz 
Ewers,  1871,  in  Duesseldorf,  and  Theodor  Et- 


MEEE  ENTERTAINMENT          207 

zel  must  be  mentioned  as  prominent  humorists 
to-day.  Etzel  and  Roda  Roda  are  issuing  a 
library  of  the  World's  Humor,  the  first  volume 
of  which,  "  Laughing  Germany "  (Das  La- 
chende  Deutschland),  enables  one  to  choose 
what  is  best  in  the  fun  of  the  moment.  Hanns 
von  Gumppenberg  has  parodied  Heine,  Bier- 
baum,  Liliencron  and  others.  To  Roda  Roda  I 
mean  to  recur  when  the  Viennese  are  reached, 
at  close  of  this  book. 

Short  stories  abound,  but  I  recall  little  that 
was  memorable  save  some  bizarre  things  by 
Gustav  Meyrink,  and  the  curiously  skilful  pages 
of  erotic  cynicism  signed  Marie  Madeleine.  If, 
instead  of  mentioning  scores  of  other  German 
women  writers,  I  choose  this  one,  I  do  so  fully 
aware  of  the  general  critical  effort  to  ignore 
her.  Every  country  has  its  poetess  of  passion, 
who,  as  often  as  not,  is  shoddy  as  well  as 
shameless.  Germany  has  them  in  plenty; 
Marie  Madeleine  is  the  only  one  I  find  re- 
markable. 

WE  have  only  to  recall  the  French  verses  at- 
tempted by  an  American  girl,  Natalie  Barney, 
in  1901,  to  realize  such  phenomena  as  inter- 
national. In  her  "  Portraits-Sonnets  de 
Femmes  "  this  girl  of  twenty,  new-world  bred, 
contributed  to  the  curiosities  of  literature  a 
volume  which  for  precocious  neuroticism,  eroti- 


208          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

cism,  or  whatever  you  wished  to  call  it  politely 
rather  than  truthfully,  cannot  easily  be  ex- 
punged from  the  record.  That  you  may  see  how 
constantly,  at  the  period  we  have  been  contem- 
plating, namely,  the  last  decade  of  the  nine- 
teenth and  the  first  decade  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury, the  artistic  diversions  of  England,  France 
and  Germany  conspired  to  a  sort  of  trio,  both 
in  serious  tendencies  and  occasional  aberrations, 
suppose  we  regard  momentarily  the  American 
type  of  Marie  Madeleine. 

IN  "  Portraits-Sonnets  de  Femmes  "  we  had 
a  girl  of  twenty  confessing  such  worship  of  her 
own  sex,  so  passionately,  as  to  remind  equally 
of  Lesbos  and  the  Marquis  de  Sade.  She  wrote 
in  French,  because,  as  she  declared,  English  had 
been  too  much  with  her  to  retain  aught  of  sen- 
timent ;  hers  was  abominable  French,  but  it  was 
enough  to  impose  upon  the  half -educated  fash- 
ionables whom,  primarily,  she  wished  her  book 
to  startle.  She  cited  Stuart  Merrill,  Viele- 
Griffin  and  others  of  her  own  sex ;  prattled  un- 
cannily about  free  verse,  and  asserted  that  she 
sometimes  fancied  her  soul  to  be  the  tomb  of 
some  dead  French  poet.  We  are,  all  of  us, 
tombs  of  one  thing  or  another ;  some  of  us  are 
tombs  of  dead  hopes;  others  use  bromides  be- 
fore breakfast.  Neither  the  precocity  of  her 
pose  nor  its  originality  need  impress  us;  her 


MEEE  ENTERTAINMENT          209 

French  was  not  good  enough  to  lead  us  to  sup- 
pose her  English  much  better.  Such  a  preco- 
cious girl  of  twenty  should  have  remembered 
what  a  one-time  impertinent  young  man  had 
confessed  long  before : 

"  With  all  this  I  did  not  learn  French.  I 
chattered  and  felt  intensely  at  home  in  it ;  yes, 
I  could  write  a  sonnet  or  a  ballad  almost  with- 
out a  slip,  but  my  prose  required  a  good  deal 
of  alteration,  for  a  greater  command  of  lan- 
guage is  required  to  write  in  prose  than  in 
verse.  I  found  this  in  French  and  also  in  Eng- 
lish." (How  these  currents  do  flow  parallel 
throughout  the  world !  Shaw  not  only  said,  but 
went  far  to  prove  the  same  thing,  when  he 
dashed  off  a  copyright  version  of  "  The  Admi- 
rable Bashville  "  in  verse  because  it  was  so  much 
easier  and  quicker  than  decent  prose.)  "For 
when  I  returned  from  Paris,  my  English  terri- 
bly corrupt  with  French  ideas  and  forms  of 
thought,  I  could  write  acceptably  English  verse, 
but  even  ordinary  newspaper  prose  was  beyond 
my  reach." 

What  should  be  noted  is  the  matter  of  her 
verse;  this  was  so  perverse,  even  if  imitated 
rather  than  felt  by  its  author,  as  to  put  her, 
if  not  for  performance,  at  least  for  intention, 
into  the  ranks  of  those  who  in  English,  French 
and  German  so  worshiped  sex,  passion  or  erot- 
omania as  to  reach  an  unusual  height,  if  not 


210          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

in  art,  then  in  abnormality.  I  have  taken  the 
trouble,  that  you  may  the  better  understand 
such  feminine  emanations  —  which  do  not  differ 
much  whether  they  appear  in  one  country  or 
another,  England,  America,  France  or  Ger- 
many —  to  turn  into  almost  decent  English 
some  of  the  Natalie  Barney  French,  which  is 
often,  simply  as  French,  indecent  enough. 

Her  sonnet  to  "  The  Lady  of  Slumbering 
Desires  "  exposes  an  uncanny  virgin  worship  in 
this  poetess  of  passion: 


I  would  leave  out  all  carnal  rhymes 
That  well  might  wound  your  opal  soul 
By  the  thick  cloud  of  their  male  passion. 
Yea,  I  would  love  you,  yet  not  bruise  your 
wings. 

Hymns  to  your  virgin  beauty  I  would  sing; 
Set  up  a  cult  for  you  beyond  the  world; 
Wrap  you  in  lilies,  incense  and  wax  tapers. 

A  vestal  I  would  be,  and  your  fair  whiteness 
Should  suffer  not  the  troubling  lips 
Of  lovers,  nor  of  charming  women. 


Might  we  not  be  excused  if  some  of  these 
suggestions  left  us  a  little  sick?  Next,  let  us 
try  the  sonnet  to  "  La  Princesse  Lointaine  " : 


Pure  as  a  child's  gaze  is  thy  body; 
Thy  voice  is  sweet  as  an  ^Eolian  harp, 
And  lulls  my  heart  t'ward  ancient  Greece; 
Thy  song's  fine  ecstasy  makes  Sappho  live  again. 


MEEE  ENTERTAINMENT          211 

Did  yonder  pale  immortal  have  the  accent 
Of  thy  so  pagan,  clear  and  sapphire  eyes, 
The  fairness  of  thy  Lesbian  skin, 
Where  thy  breast's  tips  watch  lovelorn? 

Before  the  stirring  charm  of  thy  tired  gait 
Nature  bows  down,  and  love  pleads  for  thy  mouth  — 
Thy  mouth  that  chants  thy  sterile  state. 

Thy  body  is  a  flame  wherein  all  priestesses 
Must  throw  the  flower  of  their  pure  youth 
To  keep  alive  thy  immortality. 


Only  a  grim  holding  on  to  the  thought  that 
this  girl  of  twenty  was  repeating  echoes  of 
what  she  did  not  really  understand  saves  us 
from  asking  for  such  stuff  as  this  a  medical 
verdict. 

In  a  sonnet  to  "  Salammbo  "  occur  lines  such 
as  these: 


Afloat  on  my  desire  the  memory  lies 

Of  that  night  when  your  roseate  pallor  heard 

my  passion. 

An  essence  lingers  to  remind  my  pain 
How  all  is  past;    how  empty  is  the  altar 
Of  our  so  young  voluptuousness,  where  weari- 
ness holds  sway 
Lamenting  endlessly  your  kisses'  knell. 

Upon  your  tired  flesh,  and  on  the  golden  shaft 
That  holds  your  head,  there  mingle  still 
The  bitter  odors  of  a  full-blown  flower. 


The  bitterness  of  motherhood  obsessed  this 
girl  of  twenty.  Even  in  a  poem  on  "  April " 
is  this  lament: 


212          MASKS  AND  MINSTEELS 

And  the  flower  regrets  that  it  loved  so  much 
Since  now  she  feels  Summer's  fire  burning  within. 

Oh  sad  time  when  all  Nature  bears  fruit, 
When  Love  lies  deformed,  in  obedience  to  Matter, 
When,  after  the  perfume  of  vanishing  nights, 
Life  turns  to  mere  prose,  and  the  woman  turns 
mother ! 


Now  all  this,  fortunately,  is  nothing  but  imi- 
tation. This  young  person  had  saturated  her- 
self with  what  the  young  artistic  swashbucklers, 
waving  formulas  and  symbols,  were  doing  in 
France.  This  is  what  we  must  believe  if  we  are 
charitable.  American  art  of  just  that  period 
(the  turn  of  the  centuries)  was  peculiarly  rich 
in  imitation,  and  this  volume  by  a  girl  of 
twenty  only  accentuates  the  point  such  imitation 
could  reach.  Considered  more  seriously,  the  in- 
cident proves  the  extent  of  the  influence  ema- 
nating from  France  at  that  time,  and  spreading 
over  the  English-  as  well  as  the  German-speak- 
ing countries. 

As  an  individual  instance  "  Portraits-Sonnets 
de  Femmes  "  is  most  clearly  explained  by  re- 
calling a  paragraph  from  a  brief  bit  of  auto- 
biography Paul  Verlaine  once  gave  us.  He  told 
of  his  reading,  at  fourteen,  Baudelaire.  "  I 
devoured  the  collection  without  understanding 
anything ;  unless  it  was  that  '  perversities  '  (as 
one  says  in  young  ladies'  boarding-schools) 
were  in  question ;  .  .  .  these  *  perversities  '  and 


MERE  ENTERTAINMENT         213 

their  sometime  nakednesses  formed  an  attrac- 
tion for  my  young  corruption." 

As  to  my  version  of  the  Barney  verses  I  as- 
sert only  that  my  English  is  better  than  her 
French. 

WHAT  distinguished  Marie  Madeleine  from 
the  general  run  of  "  poetesses  of  passion  "  that 
marked  especially  the  adolescent  nations,  Amer- 
ica and  Germany,  was  her  very  real  talent  for 
the  externals  of  her  art.  What  there  was  of 
erotic,  even  of  perverse,  in  her  matter,  was 
brought  into  the  sphere  of  real  art  by  the  gen- 
ius in  her  expression.  This  applies  to  her  many 
volumes  of  stories  as  to  her  verse. 

Marie  Madeleine,  it  is  well  known,  is  the  pen 
signature  of  the  Baroness  of  Putkamer. 

One  other  woman,  Margarethe  Boehme, 
whose  "  Diary  of  a  Lost  Soul "  (Tagebuch 
einer  Verlorenen)  has  been  read  in  more  than 
the  German  language,  is  never  included  by  aca- 
demic classifiers  as  among  the  producers  of 
modern  German  literature.  Yet  that  one  book 
of  hers,  with  its  faithful  chronicle  of  a  fallen 
woman's  career,  should  by  all  human,  rather 
than  literary  rights,  take  rank  with  the  vital 
documents  in  that  sort,  with  Hogarth's  "  Rake's 
Progress,"  and  certainly  with  such  as  "  Mrs. 
Warren's  Professsion."  The  fact  that  one  Ger- 
man critic  asserted  the  impossibility  of  a  woman 


214          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

herself  immune  from  vice  having  written  such 
a  book,  is  proof  that  besides  truth  of  matter 
there  was  compelling  art  in  Margarethe 
Boehme's  book. 

I  cannot  pretend  to  deal  comprehensively 
with  either  the  women-writers  or  the  main  bulk 
of  the  mere  entertainers  in  the  current  literature 
of  Germany.  Barring  the  exceptions  noted,  the 
ladies  over  there  have  not  stirred  me,  tho*  I 
admit  Clara  Viebig  is  quite  as  great  a  novelist 
as  Sudermann.  Of  the  entertainers  I  choose 
to  single  out  the  figure  which  not  only  towers 
above  the  rest  for  versatility  and  for  sheer  bulk 
of  accomplishment,  but  also  survives  to  this 
present  day  as  a  giant  from  the  ferment  and 
the  flourish  of  those  Young  German  days  which, 
if  we  must  tell  the  truth,  shine  more  splendidly 
to-day  than  our  own  time  does.  The  artists  of 
our  day,  in  all  the  channels  of  art  save  the 
drama,  seem  of  smaller  stature  than  the  men  my 
book  has  been  insisting  on. 


XI 

EENST    VON    WOLZOGEN 

ERNST,  FREIHERR  VON  WOLZOGEN,  has  al- 
ready been  much  referred  to  in  my  pages  de- 
voted to  the  Uberbrettl'.  He  was  prime  mana- 
gerial mover,  as  well  as  literary  conspirator,  in 
most  of  the  novel  enterprises  of  that  time ;  and 
it  was  to  him  that  the  memory  of  those  episodes 
clung  longest.  Of  all  the  volume  of  caricature 
and  fun  poked  at  the  Uberbrettl'  and  its  varia- 
tions, the  most  pungent  item  was  that  cartoon 
by  Theodor  Heine  referred  to  in  my  second 
chapter. 

We  have  seen  how  most  of  the  Uberbrettl' 
poets  lived  to  survive  all  such  ridicule.  That 
campaign  for  applied  art  was  incidental  to 
greater  things  in  them  ;  just  as  their  own  great- 
ness has  by  now  lifted  that  same  incident  into 
dignity  and  to  historic  significance  in  the  de- 
velopment of  modern  German  literature.  To 
Von  Wolzogen  the  brand  of  the  Uberbrettl' 
clung  most  persistently,  obscuring,  often,  the 
215 


216          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

serious  and  dignified  work  his  versatility  was 
pouring  forth. 

For  sheer  versatility  no  artist  of  modern 
times  has  surpassed  Von  Wolzogen.  Stories, 
novels,  plays  gay  and  plays  tragic  have  poured 
from  him  in  an  incessant  stream.  He  has  been 
actor-manager,  poet,  composer,  novelist,  mili- 
tant minstrel  and  many  other  things.  In  the 
tiberbrettl'  period  it  was  he  who  literally  ful- 
filled the  old  troubadour  simile,  chanting  him- 
self, to  his  own  music,  upon  his  own  instrument, 
in  a  theatre  of  which  he  was  manager,  songs 
which  he  had  written  himself.  The  centuries 
had  reversed  the  figures  a  little,  that  was  all; 
of  old  a  ragged  minstrel,  a  thing  of  shreds  and 
patches,  sang  in  the  marble  halls  of  barons ; 
in  this  Uberbrettl'  day  of  ours  was  a  baron 
Von  Wolzogen  singing  to  such  rag-tag  and 
bobtail  as  might  compose  a  music-hall  audi- 
ence. 

Catulle  Mendes  in  France,  who  could  write  all 
things  in  the  world  with  an  almost  uncanny  ar- 
tistic dexterity ;  who  was  always  only  an  intan- 
gible fraction  below  the  master  in  whatever  field 
he  essayed,  yet  was  never  master  in  anything; 
—  if  we  excuse  Von  Wolzogen  from  any  such 
malicious  suggestiveness  as  always  ran  under- 
current to  the  subtle  art  of  Mendes,  —  it  is  to 
Mendes  we  recur  when  seeking  for  an  equal  to 
the  diversity  of  Von  Wolzogen's  talent.  He  has 


ERNST  VON  WOLZOGEN          217 

written  stories  of  military  life  and  civil  life; 
there  is  hardly  any  department  of  literary  ac- 
tivity in  which  he  has  not  achieved  considerable 
work.  There  is  no  better  picture  of  the  Abbe 
Liszt  and  the  whole  musical  circle  of  that  time 
at  Weimar  than  is  in  his  novel  "  Der  Kraft- 
Mayr."  That  book  outranks  many  better 
known  volumes  in  that  sort;  with  the  novels  of 
George  Moore  on  music ;  with  Claretie's 
"  Brichanteau,"  and  with  Gertrude  Atherton's 
"  Tower  of  Ivory  "  it  is  properly  comparable. 
The  picture  of  Weimar  is  drawn  from  the  inside, 
and  has  no  such  abominable  blemishes  and  care- 
lessness as  marred  the  Atherton  book.  No 
Liszt  historian  will  easily  avoid  Von  Wolzogen's 
sketch  as  a  valuable  document.  As  to  the  cen- 
tral idea  of  the  overpowering,  compelling  fas- 
cination of  the  pianist  hero,  have  we  not  had 
that  again,  ten  years  later,  in  Hermann  Bahr's 
"  Concert,"  a  play  now  familiar  to  all  of  us 
accessible  to  the  English  tongue?  I  ven- 
ture to  think  "Der  Kraft-Mayr "  Von  Wol- 
zogen's most  memorable  artistic  accomplish- 
ment. 

To  pick,  from  such  a  vast  volume  of  work  as 
this  man's,  any  preferable  items  is  doubtless 
futile.  Von  Wolzogen's  series  of  ballads,  often 
with  his  own  music,  can  still  be  bought  in  the 
German  shops,  under  the  "  Buntes  Theater " 
label  or  many  others  which  flourished  in  that 


218          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

Green  German  time.  His  "  A  Fescher  Dom- 
ino," "  Das  Laufmaedel "  and  "  Madame 
Adele  "  are  among  the  best  of  the  merry  and 
tuneful  songs  which  originated  in  that  move- 
ment. You  will  admit  that  from  such  min- 
strelsy, with  all  the  literal,  actual,  impersona- 
tion of  it  already  mentioned,  to  the  writing  of 
a  libretto  for  Richard  Strauss's  "  Feuersnot " 
or  of  the  faery  spectacle,  "  Die  Maibraut,"  or 
of  any  one  of  the  many  serious  works  in  dra- 
matic or  romantic  form  that  Von  Wolzogen  has 
signed,  shows  a  versatility  nothing  less  than 
remarkable. 

Von  Wolzogen  is  a  member  of  one  of  the  old- 
est families  in  Germany,  much  to  the  fore  in 
the  history  of  Teutonic  culture.  He  is  baron, 
as  was  Detlev  von  Liliencron ;  and  as  was  Von 
Recnicek,  the  Austro-Hungarian  genius  who 
gave  color  and  outline  (mostly  through  illus- 
trations printed  in  the  first  volumes  of  Mu- 
nich's Simplicissimus)  to  so  many  of  the  figures 
in  ballads  by  Bierbaum  and  by  Von  Wolzogen 
himself.  Specially  memorable  were  the  Von 
Recnicek  paintings  depicting  Bierbaum's 
"  Hoher  Besuch  "  and  Von  Wolzogen's  "  Ma- 
dame Adele." 

Von  Wolzogen  lived  in  Weimar,  Berlin  and 
Munich,  and  in  the  latter  town  the  idea  of  the 
UberbrettP  took  him.  He  was  of  the  Uber- 
brettl'  leaders ;  his  were  some  of  the  most  pop- 


ERNST  VON  WOLZOGEN          219 

ular  songs  and  tunes  under  that  banner;  but 
he  was  never  content  to  play  second  fiddle  or 
remain  subordinately  a  member  of  even  an 
Uberbrettl'  brotherhood,  and  he  branched  away 
from  it  in  many  directions  of  his  own.  What 
he  attempted  in  the  Darmstaedter  Spiele 
(Darmstadt  Plays),  for  instance,  was  somewhat 
different  from  the  music-hall  notion  of  the  other 
minstrels.  Into  comic  opera,  too,  he  branched ; 
and  there  was  hardly  any  form  of  art  which  he 
did  not  try,  as  author,  composer  and  actual 
manager,  to  apply  to  the  public  entertainment 
of  the  people.  There  was  hardly  ever  a  new 
movement  of  any  sort  in  the  line  of  light 
theatric  fare  wedded  to  real  art  without  Von 
Wolzogen  being  to  the  fore. 

His  undying  youthfulness  as  entertainer  was 
shown  again  as  lately  as  the  summer  of  1909 
when  he  wrote  specially  for  the  open-air  thea- 
tre in  Wiesbaden  his  play  "  Die  Maibraut." 
That,  in  many  ways,  was  his  triumphant  point 
of  achievement  in  applying  his  art  to  the  needs 
of  the  immediate.  These  open-air  theatres,  as 
we  know,  had  been  spreading  about  the  world 
for  some  time.  At  Orange,  in  France ;  in  the 
Arena  Goldoni,  in  Florence,  and  in  many  sylvan 
spots  in  Switzerland  and  Germany  this  return 
to  nature  by  way  of  the  theatre  had  been  going 
on.  Sporadic  cases  had  occurred  often  enough 
before,  it  is  true ;  I  recall  a  pictorially  effective, 


220          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

if  artistically  negligible,  performance  of  Hum- 
perdinck's  "  Haensel  and  Gretel "  under  the 
trees  in  Regent's  Park,  London ;  and  the  out- 
door versions  of  "  As  You  Like  It,"  labeled  for 
fashionable  purposes  "  al  fresco,"  had  made 
many  an  innocent  pastoral  scene  in  England 
and  America  tumultuous  once  or  twice  a  year 
for  decades  past.  But  until  Maude  Adams,  in 
the  wonderfully  picturesque  setting  of  the 
Lawn  Club's  premises  in"  New  Haven  gave  her 
really  artistic  realizations  of  the  open  air's  dra- 
matic possibilities ;  or  until  the  Bohemian  Club 
of  San  Francisco  gave  its  annual  sylvan  play 
under  the  redwoods,  America  was  barren  in  this 
newest  effort  to  oust  the  shut-in  air  of  conven- 
tion from  the  drama.  Still,  with  the  exception 
of  the  plays  written  for  those  Bohemian  Club 
"  Jinks,"  what  was  performed  under  these 
charming  and  novel  conditions,  even  in  Europe, 
was  mostly  antique  stuff.  The  plays  I  saw,  for 
instance,  in  the  open-air  theatre  at  Hertenstein, 
near  Lucerne,  were  classics ;  Grillparzer's  "  Des 
Meeres  und  der  Liebe  Wellen  "  was  probably 
the  most  effective  of  them. 

It  was  Von  Wolzogen  who  first  in  Europe 
adapted  his  art  to  the  new  conditions  of  the  nat- 
ural backgrounds  and  lights.  He  wrote  his 
"  Die  Maibraut "  directly  for  the  needs  of  the 
open-air  theatre  in  the  Nerothal,  a  sheltered 
park-like  bit  of  natural  rock  and  greenery  just 


ERNST  VON  WOLZOGEN          221 

outside  Wiesbaden.  He  applied  his  craft  di- 
rectly to  making  the  art  of  the  theatre  pliable 
to  the  new  conditions.  The  men  who  wrote  the 
pastoral  plays  for  the  Bohemian  Club  in  San 
Francisco  hardly  attempted  much  more  than 
mere  beauty  of  rhetorical  and  pictorial  effect. 
Von  Wolzogen  wrote  a  play  in  which  all  his  skill 
as  dramatist  was  employed,  and  the  result  was 
not  only  effective  in  its  color  and  its  illusion, 
but  in  its  action. 

Since  Wiesbaden  is  a  town  beloved  of  the 
present  German  Emperor,  and  the  natural  ad- 
vantages of  the  Nerothal  wonderful  for  the  pur- 
poses of  such  a  play,  the  success  of  "  Die 
Maibraut  "  was  considerable. 

Whether  Von  Wolzogen's  versatility,  his  fe- 
cundity, endangered  the  lasting  qualities  of  his 
art,  it  is  too  soon  to  say,  for  he  is  still,  as  it  is 
pleasant  to  record  here,  among  the  living.  It 
is  true  that,  despite  the  nothing  less  than  tre- 
mendous volume  of  serious  work  he  has  done 
since  the  Uberbrettl'  days,  it  has  been  hard  to 
erase  in  some  sections  of  the  German  public  the 
memory  of  him,  performing  his  own  composi- 
tions, in  variety  attire.  Upon  this  detail  he  did 
not  hesitate  to  declare  himself  while  visiting 
America  and  its  many  German  Societies  at  end 
of  1910.  He  resented  the  inability  of  certain 
people  in  Germany  to  forget  his  red  silk  coat 
and  his  blue  breeches,  and  their  heedlessness  of 


222          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

the  forty-odd  serious  books  which  held  his  real 
self  far  more  comprehensively  than  the  passing 
flirtation  with  music-hall  reform.  He  deplored, 
also,  the  sort  of  music-hall  performer  who  lat- 
terly abused  the  Uberbrettl'  as  a  label,  and  did 
things  in  its  name  which  were  as  abominable  as 
what  the  Uberbrettl'  had  tried  to  reform.  But 
that  does  not  taint  the  virtue  of  the  fine  idea 
itself. 

Certain  autobiographic  hints  Von  Wolzogen 
gave  while  in  America  are  of  interest  to  students 
of  his  career.  His  grandfather  was  teacher  of 
Schiller's  children,  and  later  their  guardian,  and 
knew  Goethe  well.  His  father  and  grandfather 
had  part  in  that  great  classic  period  of  Weimar 
and  Jena.  As  for  the  smaller  men,  those  men 
against  whose  dominance  the  rebels  of  the 
'eighties  rose,  the  Geibels,  Auerbachs,  Boden- 
stedts  and  Heyses,  Von  Wolzogen  as  a  boy  saw 
them  much  in  his  father's  house,  and  saw 
through  their  small  aestheticisms.  Von  Wolzo- 
gen's  mother  was  English,  and  he  admits  in- 
heriting from  her  much  of  that  humor  which 
enabled  him  to  see  that  just  those  puny  "  great 
men "  of  the  interim  period  before  '85 
(sketched  in  my  chapter  on  Liliencron)  were 
not  the  men  to  voice  the  real,  vital,  vigorous 
young  German  nation. 

Von  Wolzogen's  comedy  (1892)  "  Lum- 
pengesindel "  gave  the  amusing  side  of  such 


ERNST  VON  WOLZOGEN          223 

a  bohemian  household  as  the  Hart  brothers  con- 
ducted in  Berlin  in  the  'eighties ;  but  that  play 
has  been  considered  typical  of  its  author's  ina- 
bility to  reach  the  tragic  heights  in  art,  for  all 
its  tragedy  was  futile.  In  one  book,  "  The 
Successor  "  (Der  Thronfolger),  he  paints  court 
circles ;  in  "  Ecce  Ego,"  the  landed  squires ;  in 
"  The  Derailed  "  (Die  Entgleisten),  the  officers 
of  the  German  army ;  and  so  on.  His  enter- 
tainment was  unfailing,  and  for  the  sake  of  that 
it  was  easy  to  forgive  him  his  lack  in  the  seri- 
ous or  tragic  qualities.  He  never  bored  you, 
not  for  one  moment  in  his  long  life  of  artistic 
activity.  He  had  a  gaiety  of  invention,  a  fresh- 
ness of  execution,  that  made  him,  whether  he  was 
rhyming  you  a  song  to  suit  some  mood  of  the 
moment,  or  was  telling  a  story,  or  writing  a 
play,  or  combining  all  these  arts  in  a  theatre 
of  his  own,  one  of  the  most  unfailing  entertain- 
ers our  time  has  known. 

IN  this  effort  to  sketch  the  evolution  of  Ger- 
man literature  out  of  the  revolution  of  the 
'eighties  to  the  present  time,  Von  Wolzogen 
serves  in  his  living  person  as  a  link  from  that 
time  to  this.  For  earnestness  of  intention  to 
declare  artistically  his  own  time,  his  own  people, 
his  own  self,  neither  Bierbaum  nor  any  of  the 
others  surpassed  Von  Wolzogen  ;  and  I  think  he 
will  be  remembered  for  just  that.  It  is  safe  to 


224         MASKS  AND  MINSTEELS 

assert  his  value  as  one  who,  in  opposition 
to  those  sesthetic  antiquaries  and  sexless  pun- 
dits of  before  '85,  really  accomplished  some- 
thing, really  put  his  life  into  his  art,  and 
came  to  close  quarters  with  reality,  with  human- 

ity.  ^ 

His  case,  again,  proves  another  point,  which 
I  have  already  made:  the  younger  men  now 
coming  forward  seem  of  smaller  size  than  the 
men  of  the  storm-and-stress  of  the  Young 
German  period.  Von  Wolzogen,  entertainer 
rather  than  great  artist  that  he  is,  is  still  more 
valuable  than  these  younger  men  who  are  again 
falling  into  formalisms  of  art.  History,  of 
course,  repeats  these  recessions  constantly ;  and 
the  real  impetus  from  Liliencron  and  Bierbaum, 
the  two  men  who  most  vitally  remade  German 
literature  in  our  time,  may  show  itself  in  the 
work  of  a  generation  beyond  our  own. 

IN  what  I  have  so  far  written  my  main  hope 
has  been  to  stir  interest  in  this  revival  of  true 
minstrelsy  in  Germany.  It  was  only  through 
those  who  were  most  truly  minstrels  that  you 
caught  the  note  of  new  Germany ;  the  others, 
perfect  stylists  and  well  intentioned  artists 
though  they  might  be,  voiced  little  save  their 
own  devotion  to  formulas,  and  proved  little  save 
that  oversophistication  is  as  futile  in  art  as  in 
life.  As  minstrels  I  believe  these  Young  Ger- 


ERNST  VON  WOLZOGEN          225 

man  singers  were  the  purest  singers  in  any 
tongue  during  our  generation.  If  I  had  to 
point  to  anything  like  an  equivalent  in  English 
I  might  find  it  only  in  Australia.  Only  there 
has  English  been  used  in  the  gay  and  careless 
musical  minstrel  fashion  to  paint  properly  the 
people  and  the  place.  The  life  of  the  bush,  of 
the  larrikin,  the  tea-billy,  the  dust,  the  profan- 
ity and  the  drink,  the  sundowners  and  the  select- 
ors; all  that  early  life  of  Young  Australia  is 
in  the  songs  of  the  late  Victor  Daley  and  many 
others  whom  we  may  roughly  call  the  "  Bulletin 
school."  That  may  not  be  poetry  as  the  gen- 
tlemen who  measure  it  academically  limit  it; 
but  it  was  true  minstrel  stuff  voicing  its  place 
and  its  people. 

It  is  nothing  more  than  right  that  the  Syd- 
ney Bulletin  (which  also  developed  the  late 
Phil  May)  should  be  mentioned  in  this  connec- 
tion. It  did  for  those  uncouth  yet  typical  bards 
of  the  Australian  back-blocks  and  the  bush,  just 
what  for  the  Young  Germans  here  emphasized 
was  done  by  Munich  Jugend  and  Simplicissi- 
nws.  In  the  earlier  volumes  of  both  you  will 
still  find  the  first  marginal  notes  for  a  his- 
tory of  modern  German  art  and  literature.  The 
late  Albert  Langen  of  SimpHcissimus  and 
Geo.  Hirth  of  Jugend  had  their  share  in 
this  rebirth,  and  so  deserve  our  recogni- 
tion. 


226          MASKS  AND  MINSTEELS 

THERE  survives,  from  the  Young  German 
period,  still  one  other  militant  minstrel  besides 
Von  Wolzogen,  and  it  is  through  him  that  I 
pass  from  minstrelsy  proper  to  the  domain  of 
the  theatre. 

That  other  is  Frank  Wedekind. 


XII 

DRAMA    AND    WEDEKIND 

IN  the  domain  of  the  theatre  the  importance 
of  Germany  is  now  generally  admitted.  Those 
ambitions  which  the  younger  Germans  harbored 
in  the  latter  years  of  the  nineteenth  century 
came  first  in  the  lyric  and  comic  drama  to  some- 
thing of  which  all  the  world  had  to  take  note. 
It  is  not  my  intention  here  to  go  back  to  Suder- 
mann  or  Hauptmann,  about  whom  much  has  al- 
ready been  written  in  English,  and  who  are  not 
any  longer,  to  my  mind,  to  be  counted  among 
the  active,  progressive  forces.  It  is  certain 
other  men,  only  now,  at  long  last,  coming  into 
international  recognition,  whom  I  choose  to 
consider  typical  of  the  newer  German  art  in  the 
drama. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  world  was  slow  enough  in 
reaching  the  conclusion  that  the  European 
drama  is  most  alive  in  Berlin  and  the  other 
theatrical  centres  of  Germany.  A  list  of  the 
authors  represented  in  a  day  or  a  week  of  Ber- 
227 


228          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

lin's  theatres,  in  the  latter  half  of  1910,  showed 
these:  Shakespeare,  Moliere,  Goethe,  Schiller, 
Hebbel,  Grillparzer,  Ibsen,  Bjoernson,  Shaw, 
Sudermann,  Fulda,  Wedekind,  Maeterlinck, 
Capus  and  Schnitzler.  Such  listing  was,  like 
statistics  in  general,  representative  of  but  half 
the  truth.  It  did  prove  the  European  drama 
alive  in  Germany ;  but  it  did  not  prove  the  Ger- 
man drama  alive  in  Europe.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  Wedekind  and  Schnitzler,  the  list  con- 
tained no  names  that  really  belong  to  the  newer 
German  drama  of  to-day. 

If  we  declare  Sudermann  greater  as  novelist 
than  playwright,  and  Hauptmann  to  have  ex- 
pended before  now  both  his  naturalistic  bravado 
and  his  youthful  romanticism  —  having,  in- 
deed, as  an  expression  of  youthful  Germany 
never  gone  farther  than  "  Before  Sunrise " 
(Vor  Sonnenaufgang)  —  we  may  also  dismiss 
briefly  a  few  others  who,  while  their  work  still 
recurs  upon  the  German  boards,  do  not  seem 
to  me  vital  enough  for  our  present  longer  con- 
templation. Max  Halbe,  who  seemed  to  be 
making  for  fine  heights  as  a  dramatist,  will 
scarcely  live  save  in  his  play  "  Youth  "  ( Ju- 
gend),  1893.  Halbe  belonged  to  the  circle 
about  the  brothers  Hart,  and  his  play  "  Eis- 
gang  "  (1892)  was  done  at  the  Free  People's 
Theatre  (Freie  Volksbuehne ) .  The  production 
of  "  Youth,"  refused  by  most  of  the  important 


DRAMA  AND  WEDEKIND         229 

managers,  was  so  successful  as  to  place  Halbe 
momentarily  side  by  side  with  Hauptmann. 
Ever  after  that  Halbe  was  condemned  to  hear, 
as  each  new  play  of  his  was  produced,  that  he 
had  not  fulfilled  the  promise  in  "  Youth."  He 
retired  from  Berlin  to  the  country,  but  re- 
turned in  1895  to  Munich,  where  he  gained 
fresh  courage  for  new  work  in  play  and  story, 
and  —  what  brings  him  closest  to  our  immediate 
appreciation  here  —  took  part  in  those  many 
artistic  revivals  which  had  Munich  as  headquar- 
ters. In  1895  Halbe  started  with  Josef  Rue- 
derer  the  Intimate  Theatre  (Intimes  Theatre), 
on  the  boards  of  which  many  of  the  then  climb- 
ing writers  and  composers  appeared  as  public 
performers ;  and  connected  with  which  were 
such  men  as  Wedekind,  Hartleben,  and  Karl 
Hauptmann,  Gerhardt's  brother. 

As  you  will  find  Halbe  performed  often 
enough  to-day  in  Germany,  so  will  you  find 
Ludwig  Fulda.  His  work  has  always  been  dis- 
tinguished, well-bred,  and  attentive  to  form,  and 
it  has  never  been  anything  greater  than  that. 
It  has  been  romantically  and  rhetorically  cor- 
rect, and  it  has  tried  suavely  to  continue,  ac- 
cording to  the  etiquette  of  the  moment,  the  tra- 
ditions and  methods  of  Grillparzer.  Fulda  did 
many  things  cleverly ;  polished  fine-sounding 
epigrams,  and  adapted  Moliere  dexterously  ;  but 
he  is  not  to  be  counted  as  among  those  who  in 


230          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

creating  anything  really  national  put  Germany 
into  the  domain  of  international  drama. 

There  were,  further,  Ernst  Hardt,  born  in 
1876,  whose  "  Tantris  the  Fool "  (Tantris  der 
Narr),  a  modernization  of  the  Tristan  and 
Isolde  story,  brought  its  author  some  acclaim; 
Otto  Ernst,  whose  "  Flaxmann,  Teacher " 
(Flaxmann  als  Erzieher)  was  a  sterling  bit  of 
characterization  from  rustic  originals,  and 
whose  "  Youth  of  To-day "  ( Jugend  von 
Heute)  contained  much  bitter  satire  aimed  at 
modern  decadents  and  pseudo-imitators  of 
Nietzsche ;  Meyer  Foerster,  whose  "  Alt  Heidel- 
berg "  made  a  great  deal  of  money  in  England 
and  America  as  well  as  in  Germany ;  and  Franz 
Adam  Beyerlein,  whose  one  impressive  success, 
"  Zapfenstreich  "  (Taps),  is  barred  from  popu- 
larity in  English  countries  through  its  severe 
faithfulness  to  German  military  conditions  in 
barracks  and  out. 

THE  playwrights  whom  I  choose  to  empha- 
size as  most  expressive  of  the  modern  German 
theatre  —  the  theatre  in  which  Sudermann  and 
Hauptmann  are  no  longer  paramount  figures  — 
are  such  men  as  Frank  Wedekind,  Ludwig 
Thoma,  Hugo  von  Hoffmansthal,  Arthur 
Schnitzler  and  Hermann  Bahr.  Very  slowly 
have  these  names  penetrated  to  English  intelli- 
gences; yet  it  is  in  their  work  that  we  may 


DRAMA  AND  WEDEKIND         231 

find  that  which  is  to-day  drawing  the  attention 
of  the  rest  of  the  world  to  the  German  theatre. 

FOR  several  reasons,  I  begin  with  Frank 
Wedekind.  He  has,  for  one  thing,  communi- 
cated to  his  dramatic  creations  the  variete 
ideas,  the  music-hall  style,  so  to  say,  which  he 
brought  from  those  early  days,  at  which  we 
have  already  had  a  glimpse,  when  he  appeared 
upon  this  or  that  intimate  or  independent  stage 
as  a  performer  of  his  own  work.  Nextly,  it  is 
he  who  has  most  practically,  most  brutally,  put 
upon  the  stage  figures  and  ideas  that  were 
profane  or  barbaric  expressions  of  the  lyric 
unmoralities  in  Nietzsche.  The  line  from 
Nietzsche  to  Wedekind,  from  the  music-hall  ex- 
pression of  artistic  personality  to  Wedekind,  is 
direct  and  not  to  be  mistaken. 

What  was  theoretically  sublime  in  Nietzsche 
became  the  actually  bizarre  if  not  ridiculous  in 
Wedekind. 

Wedekind  chiefly  represents  complete  divorce 
from  all  the  old  man-made  moralities.  He  and 
his  characters  are  not  so  much  above  those 
moralities,  as  outside  of  them.  He  treats  hu- 
manity diabolically;  there  is  never  any  trace  of 
divine  pity  in  him.  The  music-hall's  complete 
freedom  from  society's  ordinary  restraints ;  its 
sheerly  physiologic  interpretation  of  life;  its 
entire  forgetfulness  of  ethical  or  moral  reason- 


232          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

ableness;  are  all  typified  in  Wedekind's  art. 
All  life  is  for  him  a  music-hall  performance. 
The  effects  of  things  move  him ;  causes,  morals, 
old  labels  like  "  good  and  evil,"  or  "  the  wages 
of  sin,"  do  not  move  him  at  all.  He  is  the  es- 
sential modern  expression,  through  art,  of  that 
savage  doctrine  in  nature  which  orders  that  the 
stronger  reptile  devour  the  weaker.  Doctrine, 
however,  is  the  wrong  word  to  apply  to  Wede- 
kind;  he  is  as  above  doctrines  as  he  is  outside 
of  the  old  humanities.  He  has  in  him  something 
of  Machiavelli,  something  of  Casanova,  and  the 
more  satanic  egoisms  of  Nietzsche;  he  remains 
a  strange,  uncanny,  isolated,  abnormal  figure, 
and  is  yet,  in  his  very  remoteness  from  all  nor- 
malities and  all  moralities,  typical  of  modern 
Germany's  throwing  away  from  old,  too  long 
accepted  things. 

It  is  Wedekind's  "  Spring's  Awakening " 
(Fruehlings  Erwachen)  which  first  brought  him 
into  notice  beyond  the  German  borders.  That 
tragedy  upon  our  youth's  need  for  sexual  il- 
lumination was  brutal  and  melancholy  enough; 
and  will  never  be  without  its  value  for  our  time ; 
yet  it  is  mild  compared  to  some  of  the  other 
plays  from  his  pen. 

MY  own  first  encounter  with  Wedekind  as 
playwright  came  in  the  summer  of  1902,  much 
of  which  I  spent  in  Berlin.  Following,  as  al- 


DRAMA  AND  WEDEKIND         233 

ways  in  those  years,  the  pages  of  The  Island  as 
avidly  as  possible,  I  came,  in  the  July  number, 
upon  Wedekind's  "  Box  of  Pandora  "  (Buechse 
der  Pandora)  printed  in  its  entirety.  Impos- 
sible, to-day,  to  recall  the  sensations  that  stirred 
in  me  as  I  read.  Was  this  a  madman,  uncannily 
gifted  with  a  smatter  of  cosmopolitan  tongues, 
with  the  very  color  and  gesture  of  cosmopolitan 
vice?  We  moved  in  an  atmosphere  of  cocottes, 
confidence  men,  crooks,  women  of  the  streets, 
and  murderers ;  the  closing  scene  was  of  a  bru- 
tality, in  its  effort  to  depict  a  Jack  the  Ripper 
at  his  awful  business,  which  would  sicken  a 
police  reporter.  It  was  true  Wedekind's  Eng- 
lish in  this  play  was  fitter  for  an  American  bar 
in  Berlin  than  for  those  who  really  knew  the 
language;  but  the  astounding  thing  was  that 
he  used  it  at  all.  If  English  suited  certain 
criminal  realities  in  his  play,  he  gave  you  Eng- 
lish; just  as  he  gave  you  French;  just  as  he 
gave  you  the  grossest  medical  allusions  that  no 
other  had  dared  put  into  print  before  him,  how- 
ever much  they  might  occur  in  life.  It  became 
evident,  as  I  read  this  astounding  production, 
that  this  was  a  writer  to  whom  all  things  human 
were  vile,  and  nothing  was  unprintable.  The 
real  conversations  of  male  and  female  savages 
—  of  whom  so  many  persist  in  our  times  and  in 
the  most  modern  attire  —  were  perhaps  for  the 
first  time  set  down  by  Wedekind.  The  result 


234          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

was,  as  it  always  has  been  to  squeamish  folk, 
unprintable;  all  real  conversation  is  unprint- 
able. 

AN  abnormal,  an  eccentric,  Wedekind  has  al- 
ways been.  He  was  an  eccentric  performer,  in 
the  music-hall  interpretations  he  gave ;  he  was 
eccentric  as  dramatist.  Little  that  was  ab- 
normal in  pathology  of  sex,  or  nerves,  or  san- 
ity, escaped  his  treatment  as  material  for  plays. 
He  was  eccentric,  outside  of  all  the  elder  moral, 
or  critical,  or  artistic  scruples,  or  even  scruples 
about  the  public  or  his  own  profit.  He  did  not 
merely  satirize  his  public,  as  Shaw  did ;  he  in- 
sulted it,  both  as  playwright  and  as  performer. 
Neither  censors  nor  jailors  lessened  the  fury 
with  which  he  imposed  his  eccentric  ego  upon 
his  time  in  Germany.  Against  the  time-serving 
of  Sudermann  and  the  dreamy  complaining  of 
Hauptmann,  Wedekind  loomed  as  some  vast 
irresistible  monster,  some  Juggernaut  that 
moved  ruthlessly  on  over  the  blood  and  bones  of 
the  playgoing  public.  He  cared  as  little  for 
style  or  form  in  his  plays  as  he  cared  for  mor- 
als. For  him,  as  for  Meredith,  the  "  chaos  il- 
lumined by  lightning  "  of  Wilde  applies ;  his 
dramatic  work  is  more  chaotic  than  any  other 
in  our  time,  and  yet  has  flashes,  moments,  of 
genius,  that  irritate  by  their  very  impertinence. 
He  treats  humanity  as  an  aggregation  of 


DRAMA  AND  WEDEKIND         235 

atoms ;  it  amuses  him  to  galvanize  those  atoms 
into  this  or  that  attitude.  He  has  no  coward- 
ices of  texts  and  teachings,  no  hymns  to  sing  to 
humanity.  We  are  marionettes  for  his  amuse- 
ment ;  that  is  all. 

WEDEKIND'S  life  has  been  as  extraordinary  as 
his  work.  Indeed,  if  we  would  fully  understand 
the  one,  we  must  examine  the  other.  They  must 
be  taken  together,  as  in  the  case  of  Verlaine,  or 
of  Wilde.  Only,  as  against  the  apparent  con- 
tradictions in  those  other  cases,  Wedekind's  life 
and  his  work  have  always  had  eccentricities  and 
abnormalities  in  common. 

He  was  born,  1864,  in  Hanover.  His  father 
had  been  a  physician  in  the  Orient,  one  of  the 
rebels  of  '48,  gone  to  America,  and  been  a  pio- 
neer in  San  Francisco,  where  he  married.  Frank 
Wedekind's  mother  was  of  a  Wurttemberg 
family ;  she  had  reached  San  Francisco  in  the 
adventuring  vagabondage  of  the  stage  artist. 
Wedekind  senior  made  money  in  land,  and  re- 
turned to  Hanover,  where  Frank  was  born. 
The  family  moved  to  Lenzburg,  where  Frank's 
first  youth  had  its  untrammeled  way.  The  pas- 
sion for  writing  was  his  from  the  first,  but  his 
father  made  him  study  law  in  Munich.  There, 
however,  he  consorted  only  with  artists  and 
players.  His  studies  shifted  to  Zurich,  where 
with  others  of  his  own  age  he  started  the  so- 


236          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

called  Ulrich-Hutten  circle,  furthering  the 
cause  of  modernity  in  literature.  To  this  circle 
belonged  such  as  Karl  Henckell,  John  Henry 
Mackay,  Otto  Erich  Hartleben  and  the  two 
brothers  Hauptmann.  Wedekind  here  came 
first  into  touch  with  Strindberg.  In  1888,  his 
father  dead,  Wedekind  returned  to  Munich  with 
his  patrimony.  Artistic  ferment  tossed  him 
hither  and  thither;  he  went  to  Paris,  and  to 
London,  flinging  away  his  patrimony  and  much 
of  his  physical  and  spiritual  health.  He 
learned,  then,  as  Maximilian  Harden  has 
pointed  out,  all  the  centres  of  European  cul- 
ture, all  the  sinks  of  its  perversity  and  its 
crookedness.  He  squandered  his  money  and  his 
beliefs  ah'ke  recklessly.  In  1891  he  returned 
again  to  Munich,  in  funds,  the  old  family  home 
in  Lenzburg  having  been  sold. 

The  first  editor  to  recognize  Wedekind  was 
Albert  Langen,  of  Simplicissimus,  who  took  him 
on  to  the  staff  of  that  weekly.  Karl  Heine,  of 
the  Leipzig  Literary  Society,  also  took  up 
Wedekind,  and  put  on  such  plays  of  his  as 
"Earth  Spirit"  (Der  Erdgeist),  1895,  "The 
Tenor "  (Der  Kammersaenger),  1899,  and 
"  The  Love  Potion  "  (Der  Liebestrank),  1899, 
in  which  Wedekind  himself  played  important 
parts.  These  were  his  first  successes,  both  as 
writer  and  public  performer.  An  action  for 
lese-majeste  was  brought  against  him  about 


DRAMA  AND  WEDEKIND         237 

this  time ;  he  fled  to  Paris ;  but  eventually  gave 
himself  up,  and  served  a  sentence  in  the  fortress 
of  Koenigstein.  This  episode  brought  him 
more  notoriety  than  all  he  had  accomplished  in 
art.  Then  came  the  Uberbrettl'  period,  in 
which  Wedekind  was  active  as  singer  and  per- 
former, as  has  already  been  told  on  an  earlier 
page.  The  variety  theatres  of  Berlin,  of  Mu- 
nich, and  many  other  towns  knew  him.  In  1904 
he  joined  the  forces  of  Max  Reinhardt  at  the 
German  Theatre  (Deutsches  Theater)  in  Ber- 
lin, acting  in  such  pieces  of  his  own  as 
"  Spring's  Awakening "  (Fruehlings  Er- 
wachen),  written  in  1891,  "  Earth  Spirit,"  and 
"Hidalla,"  1904. 

In  1906  Wedekind  married  Tillie  Niemann, 
an  actress,  and  in  1908  left  Berlin  to  settle 
again  in  Munich.  The  name  Wedekind  is  rich 
in  talents  besides  that  of  Frank.  His  sister 
Erika  is  well-known  as  a  brilliant  singer;  a 
brother  Donald  aped  Wedekind's  career,  at  least 
in  literature,  but  lacked  Frank's  robust  phys- 
ical and  mental  equipment.  Donald  wandered  in 
America,  retired  to  a  monastery,  wrote  a  weird 
novel,  drifted  from  editorial  desk  to  music-hall 
platform,  and  finally  shot  himself  in  Vienna  in 
1908. 

ONLY  in  some  of  his  first  verses  will  you 
find  trace  of  an  idealistic  youthfulness  hav- 


238          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

ing  once  dwelt  in  Wedekind.  He  began,  as 
Conradi,  as  Nietzsche,  with  some  yearning  for 
the  illimitable  beauties  that  spring  seems  to 
conjure  in  the  human  soul;  the  actualities  of 
life  appear  to  have  buffeted  all  those  fine  fancies 
out  of  him  at  the  first  touch,  and  forever.  In 
his  later  work  there  is  not  one  single  link  that 
binds  him  to  his  human  kind.  Joy  of  life  died 
in  him  so  young,  that  he  has  forgotten  that  it 
still  exists  in  others. 

What  has  always  been  to  the  fore  in  his  pre- 
occupation with  the  sexual  relation  between  the 
sexes  is  the  brutal,  the  diabolic,  in  them.  His 
bitter,  cynic  irony  has  played  about  every  nor- 
mal and  abnormal  gesture  of  human  passion 
that  experience  or  imagination  can  conceive. 
He  is  the  great  Denier  of  our  time.  He  denies 
morals,  denies  custom,  denies  the  laws  and  scru- 
ples of  society  and  art.  Whether  the  barriers 
of  nicety  and  decency  —  to  use  words  intelli- 
gible to  the  polite !  —  which  Wedekind  has 
kicked  down  can  ever  again  be  put  up  as  per- 
manently as  before  in  art,  is  a  fine  question.  He 
denies  the  ideal,  denies  even  what  is. 

It  was  about  1890  that  Wedekind  came  to 
the  front  as  Denier.  He  denied  and  defied  the 
naturalism  of  Gerhardt  Hauptmann.  In  his 
first  edition,  in  that  year,  of  "  The  Young 
World  "  (Die  Junge  Welt)  not  circulated  pub- 
licly, he  caricatured  Hauptmann  under  the  label 


DRAMA  AND  WEDEKEND         239 

"  Meyer,"  referred  to  naturalism  as  "  a  govern- 
ess "  and  wrote  such  lines  as  this  in  his  Pro- 
logue: 

"What's  in  these  farces  and  these  tragedies? 
Tame  and  domestic  animals,  so  sweet  in  manners, 
They  love  a  vegetarian  diet,  and  forever  purr  — 
Just  like  those  others,  purring,  in  the  stalls: 
One  hero  cannot  stand  a  bit  of  drink  (College  Cramp- 
ton), 

Another  wonders  if  he  truly  loves  (Alfred  Loth), 
The  third  despairs  of  all  that's  in  the  world, 
For  five  long  acts  you  hear  him  make  complaint 

(Poor  Heinrich) 

And  not  a  soul  to  cut  his  plaint  and  throat  at  once ! 
The  real,  wild  and  lovely  animal 
You  will  not  see,  kind  friends,  save  only  —  here." 

Nothing,  indeed,  could  be  farther  apart  than 
Hauptmann's  art  and  Wedekind's.  Wedekind 
stopped  for  no  realities ;  his  characters  were  as 
chaotic  as  the  dialogue;  all  was  on  the  abnor- 
mal and  screaming  note  of  the  affiche  larger 
than  life.  The  voice  was  the  same  in  a  hundred 
of  his  characters,  the  voice  of  Wedekind.  His 
caricatures  sketched  the  living,  but  never  filled 
them  with  breath.  As  he  has  no  concern  for 
methods  in  art,  so,  too,  he  never  moves  you 
more  than  some  chaotic  monstrosity  might  move 
you.  Yet,  like  chaos,  like  all  monstrous  things, 
there  is  something  so  vast,  so  inhuman  in  him, 
that  the  world  must  eventually  take  note  of  him. 

IT  is  in  the  volume  "  Countess  Russalka " 
(Fflrstin  Russalka),  1897,  that  one  should  look 


240          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

for  the  first  signs  of  Wedekind's  artistic  temper. 
This  volume  held  stories,  poems,  and  panto- 
mimes. It  gave  some  of  his  earliest,  and  also 
some  of  his  most  characteristic  work. 

"  Spring's  Awakening "  will  probably  live 
longer  than  any  other  Wedekind  play.  Brutal 
as  it  is,  it  still  has  a  vestige  of  idealism,  of  which 
the  later  Wedekind  retains  no  trace.  It  was  a 
children's  tragedy  of  the  most  awful,  this  play, 
and  no  greater  indictment  of  the  folly  of  letting 
hypocrisy  and  shamefulness  keep  the  young  of 
both  sexes  blind  to  what  sex  means  has  ever 
been  written.  In  quite  recent  times  this  matter 
of  the  awakening  of  sex,  of  the  widespread  and 
disastrous  prudery  about  diseases  of  sex,  has 
gradually  been  creeping  into  publicity  in 
Anglo-Saxon  countries.  Here  and  there  a  med- 
ical man  courageous  enough  to  tell  the  truth 
has  brought  an  indictment  against  the  way 
adults  conspire  to  pretend  diseases  of  sex  as 
non-existent,  and  against  the  way  children  are 
brought  up  in  ignorance  of  sexual  functions. 
Wedekind  was  the  first  to  bring  that  indictment 
through  dramatic  art. 

One  of  the  stories  in  "  Fiirstin  Russalka " 
had  already  outlined  the  subject  of  "  Spring's 
Awakening."  That  interim  period  of  pubes- 
cence, when  youth  is  torn  between  its  dread  of 
the  unknown  and  its  desires,  was  the  theme 
which  first  moved  Wedekind  in  his  story  of 


DRAMA  AND  WEDEKIND         241 

"  Rabbi  Esra  "  in  the  "  Russalka  "  collection, 
and  later  in  the  play.  Nothing  could  be  more 
awful,  more  tragic,  than  the  manner  in  which 
his  play  exposes  the  injustice  which  parents  do 
their  children  by  letting  them  stay  in  ignorance 
concerning  all  the  body's  natural  functions. 
Almost  every  hypocrisy  common  in  every  mod- 
ern country's  attitude  toward  children  is  flayed 
bitterly  by  Wedekind.  One  character  in  an 
early  story  declares  that  she  would  never  have 
supposed  "  that  one  could  bear  children  without 
having  been  married  " ;  Countess  Russalka  her- 
self was  of  the  steadfast  belief  that  God  had 
given  her  parents  children  because  they  had  been 
married  in  church,  and  not  because  early  in 
their  married  life  they  lived  together.  Frau 
Bergmann  in  the  last  act  of  "  Spring's  Awaken- 
ing "  explains  to  the  15-year-old  Wendla  that 
the  latter  has  a  child,  only  to  have  the  latter 
exclaim :  "  But,  mother,  that  isn't  possible. 
Why,  —  I'm  not  married !  "  Whereon  comes 
her  curt  reproach :  "  Oh,  mother,  why  didn't 
you  tell  me  everything?  "  and  Frau  Bergmann' s 
reply :  "  I  dealt  with  you  exactly  as  my  dear 
mother  dealt  with  me."  In  that  latter  fright- 
ful confession,  you  have  the  whole  bitter  irony 
of  Wedekind's  indictment.  It  is  the  curse  of 
Yesterday  that  has  put  its  pall  of  ignorance 
upon  so  many  of  these  danger-spots  in  To-day's 
consciousness ;  in  the  contrast  between  that  re- 


242          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

ply  of  Frau  Bergmann's  and  the  frightful 
tragedy  overwhelming  the  children  in  this  play 
lies  the  whole  difference  between  the  old  hypoc- 
risies and  the  enlightenment  for  which  all  our 
modern  world  is  still  too  slowly  striving.  All 
the  mongrel  results  of  half-culture,  all  the  false 
shame  and  hypocrisy  preventing  parent  and 
child  from  dealing  straightforwardly  with  the 
truth  in  things  physical,  are  castigated  in  this 
play. 

Now  that  "  Spring's  Awakening  "  has,  in  a 
translation  by  Count  Robert  d'Humieres  (an 
admirer,  one  recalls,  of  Mr.  Kipling),  been  per- 
formed in  Paris  at  the  Theatre  des  Arts,  and 
rumors  of  its  production  have  even  been  scat- 
tered abroad  in  America,  where,  too,  a  printed 
English  version  with  the  sub-title,  "  A  Tragedy 
of  Childhood,"  is  now  to  be  had,  one  need  not 
now  do  more  than  brief  the  actual  plot  of  it 
very  curtly. 

The  style  of  the  play,  as  throughout  all 
Wedekind's  plays,  is  largely  in  monologue,  and 
rapid  strokes  of  characterization.  Nothing  is 
filled  in ;  everything  is  outline ;  all  the  charac- 
ters, young  and  old,  talk  alike,  talk  sheer  Wede- 
kind.  We  see  two  boys  at  school,  overhear  their 
frank  wondering  discussions  about  sex  and  its 
impulses.  We  see  a  girl,  Wendla,  whose  wonder 
about  a  married  sister's  baby  is  put  off  with  all 
the  old  lying  hypocrisies;  even  after  she  has 


DRAMA  AND  WEDEKIND         243 

shared  a  hayloft  with  one  of  the  schoolboys, 
sheltered  from  a  storm,  she  knows  no  more  than 
she  did.  It  is  only  when  Wendla  dies,  in  giving 
abortive  birth  to  that  schoolboy's  child,  that 
she  utters  the  wail :  "  Oh,  mother,  why  didn't 
you  tell  me  everything?  "  That  schoolboy  is 
eventually  sent  to  a  reformatory,  where  the  hor- 
rible corruption  prevailing  among  his  fellows 
only  aggravates  his  hideous  state  of  mind  and 
body.  As  for  the  other  schoolboy,  he  has  shot 
himself  because  he  has  found  nobody  to  explain 
to  him  what  the  impulses,  the  thoughts,  the 
amazements  and  questionings  of  the  period  be- 
tween boyhood  and  maturity  mean.  Upon  all 
this  actual  hideousness  torn  from  the  life  and 
youth  of  our  own  time,  Wedekind  gave  us  a 
grotesque,  allegorical  closing  scene,  in  which 
the  boy  Melchior,  escaped  from  the  reforma- 
tory, appears,  to  utter  over  Wendlcfs  grave  the 
words :  "  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart." 
Moritz,  the  other  boy,  appears,  carrying  his 
head  on  his  arm.  Ensues  a  conversation  be- 
tween the  quick  and  the  dead,  which  only  deep- 
ens the  horror,  the  intensity  of  bitterness  in  the 
whole  play.  The  scene,  on  the  stage,  is  even 
more  terrible  than  the  closing  of  Laparra's 
opera,  "  La  Habanera." 

IF   in   "  Spring's   Awakening "   our  modern 
world  first  came  to  realize  Wedekind's  concen- 


244          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

tration  upon  sex,  that  concentration  was  to  be 
expressed  even  more  forcibly  afterwards.  There 
was,  in  the  children's  tragedy  referred  to,  still 
much  of  the  unquenched  idealist  in  Wedekind; 
indeed,  it  was  what  gleamed  through  the  lines 
suggesting  the  bitter  way  in  which  the  great 
world  of  experience  had  brutally  upset  the  ideal 
in  Wedekind's  own  youth  that  gave  this  play 
much  of  its  power.  The  play  was  applicable 
wherever  old  hypocrisies  between  parent  and 
child  still  linger;  but  the  most  tremendously 
international  creation  of  Wedekind  was  to  come 
later,  in  the  character  of  Lulu,  the  heroine  of 
"  Earth  Spirit "  and  its  sequel,  "  The  Box  of 
Pandora." 

Lulu  is  of  all  time,  of  all  climes.  She  is  the 
Eternal  Woman,  in  whose  body  the  world,  the 
flesh  and  the  devil  reign  supreme.  In  the  ap- 
parent chaos  of  her  contradictory  passions  are 
all  those  eternal  femininities  that  defy  the  clas- 
sifications of  society  or  of  science.  She  would 
give  her  body  to  the  most  brutal  ruffian,  the 
while  her  spirit  soared  to  strange  heights  of 
sensuous  finesse.  She  is  the  elemental  female, 
the  essence  of  her  sex.  She  has  the  instincts 
of  the  primal  animal,  and  these  have  driven  her 
to  cultivate  all  her  qualities  to  the  w'th  degree 
in  order  that  she  may  most  fully  express,  most 
fully  enjoy,  her  body's  possibilities.  Lulu  is 
the  eternal  Scarlet  Woman  of  the  sectarian's 


DRAMA  AND  WEDEKIND          245 

nightmare.  She  is  the  lure  of  the  flesh,  made 
doubly  potent  with  a  gleam  of  the  most  refined 
culture  that  modernity  can  contrive. 

Do  you  know  the  appalling  picture  by  Feli- 
cien  Rops,  wherein  Woman  and  all  she  typified 
to  that  most  ironical  artist  is  shown  naked,  save 
for  a  bandage  on  her  eyes,  and  guided  by  a 
gross  and  vile  pig?  From  that  conception  of 
the  dominantly  physical  in  the  female  human 
animal  Wedekind's  conception  of  Lulu  differs 
only  in  that  he  does  not  even  bandage  her  eyes. 
She  goes  open-eyed  and  joyously  into  that  bat- 
tle of  the  sexes  which  to  this  German  dramatist 
has  ever  been  the  paramount  part  of  life. 

Lulu  was  a  daughter  of  the  people,  who  rose 
thence  from  one  story  of  society  to  another 
without  ever  completely  feeling  at  home  on  any 
etage.  Literally  she  was  of  the  people;  she 
knew  neither  parent ;  she  was  of  the  earth,  the 
"  Earth  Spirit "  truly ;  its  soil  clung  to  her 
always.  First  a  flower-girl;  then  adventuress, 
then  a  lady  in  society,  she  goes  always  forward 
upon  her  single  business,  that  of  giving  her 
sexuality  one  triumph  after  another  over  the 
opposing  sex.  She  deceives  this  man,  ruins 
another,  murders  another.  She  is  the  eternal 
temptress ;  she  embodies  the  everlasting  strug- 
gle between  the  sexes;  she  is  untamable,  merci- 
less, and  seems  immortal.  In  the  sequel  to 


246          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

"  Earth  Spirit "  Lulu  has  definitely  become  a 
professional  general  in  the  bitter  war  against 
the  male.  In  "  The  Box  of  Pandora  "  we  find 
her  released  from  the  prison  to  which  the  mur- 
der in  the  other  play  had  brought  her;  though 
free  from  that  constraint,  she  is  now  more  and 
more  the  slave  of  her  own  passions  and  sinks 
from  one  phase  of  courtesanship  to  another. 
There  is  no  abomination  of  vice  or  extortion  to 
which  she  does  not  come,  both  actively  and  pas- 
sively; she  exhausts  every  iniquitous  corner  of 
every  capital  of  the  world's  vice;  mires  lower 
and  lower,  in  Paris,  and  then  London ;  to  end, 
at  last,  as  streetwalker  in  a  London  garret,  mur- 
dered by  a  Jack  the  Ripper  in  one  of  the  most 
appalling  scenes  ever  written  in  our  time  in  any 
tongue. 

BESIDES  the  plays  already  named  there  are 
"  Mine-Haha,"  first  printed  in  The  Island  in 
1901,  which  treats  specifically  of  the  physical 
education  of  girls,  castigating  life  and  conduct 
in  the  boarding-schools  and  colleges  for  young 
women  much  in  the  "  Spring's  Awakening " 
manner ;  "  The  Marquis  of  Keith,"  wherein  a 
sort  of  superman,  captain  of  huge  fantastic 
schemes  of  financial  "  promotion,"  stumbles 
from  his  eminence  over  the  dead  body  of  a 
woman  who  had  loved  him  too  well ;  "  Such  Is 
Life"  (So  1st  das  Leben),  1902,  in  which  a 


DRAMA  AND  WEDEKIND          247 

dethroned  king  turns  gipsy  comedian,  plays 
court  fool  to  his  usurping  successor,  and  sees 
his  own  daughter  in  love  with  that  successor's 
son.  About  to  be  exiled  so  that  the  two  young 
people  may  marry,  the  court  fool  declares  his 
real  kingship,  is  not  believed,  and  dies  in  his 
child's  arms  with  the  words :  "  I  abdicate,  not 
as  king,  but  as  man."  "  Such  Is  Life  "  is  now 
to  be  read  in  an  English  version ;  its  interest 
is  enhanced  by  the  obviously  autobiographic 
reflections  upon  Wedekind's  own  career  as 
artist. 

In  "  The  Marquis  of  Keith "  occurred  the 
two  aphorisms,  typical  of  Wedekind's  outlook: 
"  Life  is  a  toboggan-slide,"  and  "  Morality  is 
the  most  profitable  business  on  earth." 

Then  came  in  1904  "  Hidalla,"  and  last  Jan- 
uary in  Leipzig  I  bought  "  Oaha,"  which  was 
issued  in  1909,  and  in  September,  1910,  the  one- 
act  "  Mit  Allen  Hunden  Gehetzt  "  was  added  to 
my  collection.  "  Oaha  "  was  in  five  acts,  and 
depicted,  with  that  revolting  brutality  which 
marks  this  man's  work,  the  conduct  and  charac- 
ters in  the  office  of  an  illustrated  satiric  period- 
ical of  to-day.  The  gross  lampooning  of  the 
business  of  lampooning,  so  to  put  it,  was  as 
monstrously  inhuman  as  anything  Wedekind 
has  ever  done.  Since  in  most  cases  biographical 
or  autobiographical  texts  have  existed  for  the 
Wedekind  outbursts  —  all  his  living  and  writing 


248          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

have  had  the  character  of  seismic  explosions !  — 
one  can  only  suppose  that  the  methods  of  such 
a  paper  as  Munich  Simplicissimu$,  on  which 
Wedekind  himself  began  his  artistic  career, 
gave  "  Oaha  "  its  impulse.  The  contributors, 
the  editors,  the  manager,  the  artists,  in  this 
"  Oaha  "  concern  are  all  of  the  usual  grotesque 
Wedekind  inhumanity;  they  have  as  little  re- 
gard for  the  public  as  for  one  another.  The 
play  takes  its  name  from  an  awful  deaf-and- 
dumb  creature  who  supplies  the  "  lines "  of 
mordant  wit  that  accompany  the  world-stag- 
gering designs  of  the  artist  who  has  helped 
make  the  paper  famous.  The  only  human 
sound  this  monstrosity,  that  has  to  be  wheeled 
into  the  editorial  rooms,  can  make  is  something 
like :  Oaha !  There,  in  brief,  you  have  Wedekind 
in  his  essential  brutality. 

As  for  "Mit  Allen  Hunden  Gehetzt,"  the 
title  is  untranslatable  unless  we  devise  some 
similarity  like  "  At  the  Last  Ditch."  This  is  a 
hideous  little  episode  of  a  man  who  claims  from 
another  man's  wife  her  body  as  bribe  against  his 
making  public  a  crime  of  which  her  husband  has 
been  guilty.  The  woman  notes  in  her  tormentor 
the  signs  of  a  passion  so  abnormal  that  she  de- 
termines to  try  it  to  the  breaking  point ;  she 
so  shamelessly  offers  her  utterly  naked  body  to 
him  that  in  the  abnormal  excess  of  his  passion 
he  shoots  himself.  There,  again,  you  have  the 


DRAMA  AND  WEDEKIND         249 

sort  of  idea  that  only  Wedekind  is  capable  of 
using  as  stuff  for  drama. 

Further  have  appeared  a  satire  called  "  Cen- 
sorship"; poems,  "The  Four  Seasons  ";  "Fire- 
work," a  few  stories;  a  funeral  pantomime  in 
three  scenes  called  "  Death  and  the  Devil,"  and, 
quite  lately,  a  little  prose  dissertation  upon 
"  The  Art  of  the  Theatre  "  (Shauspielkunst). 
About  this  declaration  of  Wedekind's  dramatic 
theories  the  critic  Alfred  Kerr  remarked  that  it 
proved  at  least  one  thing  definitely,  namely,  that 
Wedekind's  effectiveness  was  part  deserved,  and 
partly  sheer  luck.  It  is  certain  that  Wedekind, 
amazing  eccentric  in  the  modern  drama  as  he  is, 
can  express  himself  effectively  only  in  that 
drama,  not  about  it.  Nothing  of  his  brutal 
abnormality,  nothing  of  his  isolation  away  from 
all  humanity,  is  in  what  he  writes  about  dra- 
matic construction  or  about  criticism.  He  is 
a  Juggernaut  who  flings  human  puppets  hither 
and  thither,  but  he  cannot  write  about  the  Jug- 
gernaut's wheels. 

THE  most  individual  talent  of  the  theatre  in 
our  time,  perhaps,  is  this  Frank  Wedekind,  and 
yet  as  full  of  faults  as  of  strength.  All  his 
characters  talk  his  own  tongue ;  all  utter  mono- 
logues; there  is  never  dialogue.  Everything 
is  sacrificed  for  a  biting  cynicism,  for  a  mordant 
caricature;  completeness  or  balance  are  never 


250          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

achieved;  everywhere  the  jagged  and  raw 
edges  of  chaotic  whims  and  passions  obtrude  in 
his  work.  In  the  moment  of  the  deepest  trag- 
edy he  grins  like  the  most  insensate  clown ;  and 
into  his  absurdest  clowning  he  infuses  the  bitter- 
est irony.  Even  in  those  lightest  moods  which 
he  expressed  in  the  ballads  he  wrote  for  the 
Uberbrettl's  uses,  some  of  which  are  in  the 
"  German  Chansons "  collection,  you  will  find 
these  contrasts ;  he  is  never  gay  without  a  sour 
conclusion. 

No  artist  in  our  time,  or  perhaps  in  any  time, 
has  gone  farther  to  the  extreme,  in  revolt  from 
his  embittered  youth,  than  Wedekind.  If  at 
first  his  bitterness  was  a  mask  to  conceal  the 
hurt  of  his  young  manhood,  it  became  even- 
tually the  man  himself,  an  inseparable  part  of 
his  ego.  That  he  has  been  able  to  make  that 
ego  stream  so  strongly  upon  the  outer  world  of 
international  art,  proves  him  a  dramatic  force 
of  truly  continental  calibre.  There  are  those, 
of  course,  who  find  Wedekind  simply  the  last 
human  word  in  that  degeneration  once  put  into 
circulation  as  a  phrase  for  the  general  abuse; 
those  who  murmur  of  Krafft-Ebing,  and  of 
Nietzsche  dying  in  a  madhouse.  They  declare 
the  profitlessness  of  putting  into  plays  charac- 
ters and  actions  which,  after  all,  are  not  typical 
but  abnormal.  They  do  not  deny  that  such 
people,  such  incidents,  such  life,  as  are  in  Wede- 


DRAMA  AND  WEDEKIND         251 

kind's  plays,  exist ;  but  they  question  the  value 
of  putting  them  into  play  or  print.  Against 
which  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  even  if  they  only 
recorded  the  utterest  abnormalities,  from  the 
most  inhuman  standpoint,  these  plays  of  Wede- 
kind  will  have  to  be  reckoned  with  by  the  future 
student  of  to-day's  civilization.  In  that  larger 
reckoning  our  abnormalities  as  well  as  our  nor- 
malities must  figure. 

Students  of  psychology,  moreover,  may  eas- 
ily enough  illumine  the  case  of  Wedekind  to  suit 
their  theories.  To  Wedekind,  as  we  have  seen, 
humanity  has  never  been  other  than  atoms  under 
a  microscope.  To  hold  humanity  under  the 
microscope  is  exactly  the  method  of  the  con- 
scious psychologist ;  he  notes  actions,  causes 
and  effects ;  he  applies  his  observations,  deduces 
from  them ;  the  human  machine  becomes  obvious 
and  simple  to  him.  Wedekind  may,  then,  by 
some  be  held  consciously  or  unconsciously  to 
enact  the  psychologist  in  his  drama ;  not  only  to 
let  the  atoms  move  under  his  microscope,  but  to 
let  us,  the  playgoers,  watch  the  very  process  of 
psychologic  exposition.  All  this,  as  I  said,  if 
you  are  able,  in  what  seems  to  others  only  chao- 
tic, to  find  psychology. 

Whatever  were  the  first  influences  upon  Wede- 
kind, as  Nietzsche,  Strindberg,  and  the  French 
writers,  essentially  it  was  his  own  life  that  fash- 
ioned him  to  eventual  individualism  as  artist. 


252          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

If  in  matter  he  occasionally  tried  paths  that  had 
been  trodden  in  Scandinavia  or  France,  in  man- 
ner he  was  never  anything  but  grotesquely  him- 
self; he  scorned  any  pattern  whatsoever;  his 
work  was  nothing  but  the  eruption,  the  ebulli- 
tion of  his  ego  and  its  ideas.  Even  in  matter  he 
surpassed  in  unscrupulousness  and  disregard  for 
old  shames,  old  restraints,  anything  that  others 
had  done.  By  comparison  Strindberg's  "  Frau- 
lein  Julie  "  seems  almost  dainty,  and  the  pseudo- 
medical  revelations  in  the  novels  of  D'Annun- 
zio  seem  packed  in  saccharine  rhetoric. 

LET  me  end  this  glimpse  at  Wedekind  by 
harking  back  to  that  Rops  sketch  which  so 
vitally  gives  the  playwright's  essential  attitude 
toward  woman.  That  same  picture  outlines  a 
curious  preoccupation  which  runs  through 
everything  he  ever  wrote.  Preoccupation, 
namely,  with  the  human  body,  especially  the 
human  body's  gait  and  gestures. 

Wedekind's  intense  joy  in  the  body  is  as 
pagan  as  that  of  the  Greeks,  but  expressed  far 
more  in  terms  of  literal  physics.  For  him  there 
is  no  veiling  the  essential  thing  itself  by  phrases 
about  a  "  human  form  divine,"  "  antique  boy- 
worship  of  the  Greeks,"  or  even  the  allusiveness 
of  a  Gautier  declaring  that  "  a  woman  who  has 
wit  enough  to  be  beautiful  has  wit  enough." 
In  him  no  tenor  murmurs  about  "  fair  boys  " 


DRAMA  AND  WEDEKIND         253 

who  are  "  lovely  as  Antinous."  He  goes 
straight  to  the  rude  core  of  man's  delight  in 
woman's  body.  If  he  himself  declared  once  that 
"  life  is  a  toboggan-slide,"  we  must,  as  we  ex- 
amine his  paramount  obsession,  declare  that  in 
him  the  cult  of  the  human  body  is  chiefly  ex- 
pressed in  intense  devotion  to  woman's  every 
gesture,  every  motion  of  her  gait.  Prince 
Escerny  said  of  Lulu :  "  When  she  dances  her 
solo,  she  becomes  drunk  with  her  own  beauty, 
with  which  she  is  in  love  up  to  the  ears ! "  To 
Wedekind,  as  to  Heine,  the  real  Song  of  Songs 
in  this  our  day  is  the  song  in  a  woman's 
form. 

Through  the  most  grotesque  situations  that 
occur  between  the  extraordinary  people  in  his 
plays  —  noblemen,  trapeze  performers,  adven- 
turers, cocottes,  and  school  children  —  the  idea 
that  only  in  a  perfect  body  can  the  perfect 
spirit  dwell  rings  out.  The  girl  Hidaila,  after 
all  the  years  she  has  spent  in  seclusion  with 
many  other  girls  in  that  strange  educational 
institution  pictured  in  "  Mine-Haha,"  recalls  of 
her  fellows  nothing,  nothing  save  their  —  gait. 
Not  Felicien  Rops  himself  has  expressed  the 
sheer  animality  of  the  female  form  as  has  Wede- 
kind ;  the  Belgian  could  not  get  the  flowing 
vividness  of  motion  into  his  strokes  that  the 
German  has  put  into  his  prose.  The  case  of 
Hidaila  is  nothing  but  a  girl's  education  in  wor- 


254          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

ship  of  her  own  body.  The  gradual  dawning 
in  her  of  appreciation  for  the  suavity  of  her 
limbs,  of  "  that  joy  which  came  to  her  as  the 
consciousness  of  her  own  body  came  to  her,  and 
which  found  vent  again  in  every  slightest  ges- 
ture," is  typical  of  this  trait  in  Wedekind's  art. 
Even  in  early  verses  in  the  "  Countess  Rus- 
salka  "  collection  was  the  line  addressed  to  a 
girl :  "  Your  irresistibility  is  in  your  legs  .  .  ." 
and  in  the  "  Galathea  "  ballad  (German  Chan- 
sons) he  declared  that  he  "  Yearned  to  kiss  your 
knees,  Spelling  as  they  do  temptation.  .  .  ." 
Of  gait  and  rhythm  in  the  body  we  find  this  in 
"  Mine-Haha  " :  "  A  person's  walk  is  not  an  ac- 
cidental thing.  It  depends  directly  on  the  way 
the  body  is  built.  .  .  .  Human  gait  has  its 
rhythm  that  is  not  to  be  expressed  in  words, 
that  can  only  be  felt.  From  this  rhythm  you 
may  easily  reconstruct  the  entire  body." 

This  instinct  for  bodily  rhythm  Wedekind 
put  among  the  vital  attributes  of  his  elemental 
female,  Lulu.  The  rhythm  of  her  own  body 
moves  Lulu  to  a  very  passion,  a  need,  for  dan- 
cing; if  for  one  evening  she  fails  to  give  her 
dance,  she  admits :  "  I  dream  all  night  that  I 
am  dancing,  and  next  day  every  bone  in  me 
aches."  Her  body  excites  not  only  in  others  but 
in  herself,  "  the  maddest  excitement."  One,  a 
poet,  praises  her  body  thus :  "  Through  this 
gown  your  stature  is  as  a  symphony  to  me. 


DRAMA  AND  WEDEKIND         255 

These  fine  ankles  are  as  a  Cantabile;  this  rav- 
ishing curve,  and  this  knee,  are  as  a  Capriccio ; 
and  this  the  mighty  Andante  of  voluptuous- 
ness. .  .  ." 

As  we  remember  the  emphasis  on  these  quali- 
ties in  body  and  gait  that  runs  through  all 
Wedekind  writes,  those  early  "  Pantomime 
Dances  "  in  the  "  Fiirstin  Russalka "  volume 
come  more  and  more  to  express  Wedekind's  real 
attitude  toward  life.  That  attitude  is  one  of 
inhuman  disdain.  Before  his  cynically  distort- 
ing mirror  he  lets  all  lif  e  pass ;  all  are  equal 
before  that  ironic  reflector.  His  relentless  de- 
termination to  fling  his  figures  about  into 
frightful  and  abnormal  postures,  detracts  from 
our  ability  to  feel  anything  of  his  as  a  complete 
work  of  art.  Wedekind  is  as  chaotic  as  Nature 
herself;  there  is  no  notion  absurder  than  that 
Nature  is  logical  or  artistic  in  the  petty  sense. 
The  sheerly  profane  expression  of  Nietzsche's 
most  inhuman  egoism  is  Wedekind.  Humanity 
has  moved  his  pity  as  much  as  it  has  moved 
Vesuvius  when  that  volcano  was  in  eruption. 

To  further  his  conception  of  all  life  as  an 
expression  of  the  body,  either  for  brutality  or 
beauty,  he  has  sacrificed  not  alone  casual  char- 
acters and  types  in  ordinary  human  society,  but 
most  of  the  actual  men  and  women  whom  he  has 
known  in  the  flesh.  There  is  hardly  a  play  of 
his  that  has  not  some  gross,  hideous  version  of 


256          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

a  real  and  well-known  personage.  What  makes 
all  this  the  more  frightful  is  that  some  truth  is 
in  even  the  most  brutal  of  Wedekind's  apparent 
distortions.  Have  we  not  heard,  for  many 
years,  the  sententious :  "  In  the  most  civilized, 
the  most  sophisticated  of  us,  dwells  still  the 
primal  brute,  the  savage.  But  no  man  dares 
proclaim  the  real  thoughts  and  words  of  that 
brute  part  of  us."  That  is  just  what  Wedekind 
has  dared  to  do:  he  has  laid  bare  all  the  brute 
in  normal,  as  well  as  in  abnormal  mankind.  If 
he  has  gone  to  the  other  extreme  —  has  refused 
to  see  that  in  us  human  creatures  there  is  also 
something  beside  the  brute  —  he  has  none  the 
less  perfectly  fulfilled  the  old  artistic  law  that 
you  must  always,  to  bring  your  point  home,  tell 
not  only  the  truth  but  more  than  the  truth: 
you  must  exaggerate.  Wedekind  has  exagger- 
ated the  brutal  qualities  in  us,  until  he  has  made 
us  shudder.  He  is  eccentric  and  perverse;  the 
tragic  comedian  of  the  abnormal;  whether  he 
is  genius  of  psychology  or  only  genius  of  chaos, 
he  has  gashed  the  irremediable  savagery  of  our 
time,  surviving  through  centuries  of  so-called 
civilization,  so  deeply  upon  the  theatre  and 
upon  literature  that  he  may  survive  when  time- 
serving photographers,  or  complaining  ideal- 
ists, are  forgotten. 


xni 

LUDWIG  THOMA'S  "  MORAL  " 

LUDWIG  THOMA  is  another  whose  first  fruits 
were  given  the  world  through  Simplicissimus. 
As  playwright  Thoma  comes  into  our  reckoning 
here  through  his  one  comedy,  of  the  year  1909, 
called  "  Moral."  His  reputation  had  chiefly 
been  that  of  humorist,  and  his  stories,  sometimes 
as  brief  as  anecdotes,  sometimes  of  novelette 
size,  have  been  largely  concerned  with  the  peas- 
ant and  burgess  characters  of  Bavaria.  He  was 
born  in  Oberammergau  in  January,  1867.  Some 
of  his  collections  of  short  stories,  as  "  Laus- 
bubengeschichten,"  are  nothing  less  than  fa- 
mous in  Germany,  and  have  sold  tremendously. 
Than  the  humor  and  vivid  characterization  in 
such  a  book  as  "  Kleinstadtgeschichten " 
(Tales  of  Small  Towns)  I  know  little  finer  in 
the  entire  "  village  "  province  of  literature. 

But  the  three-act  comedy  "  Moral "  is  what 
gives  him  title  to  rank  as  a  dramatist  deserving 
international  appreciation.  This  comedy  in 
three  acts  goes,  in  the  same  field,  as  deep  as 
Shaw's  "  Mrs.  Warren's  Profession,"  but  it  is 
267 


258          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

lighter,  more  truly  stuff  for  laughter.  No 
country  where  hypocrisy  or  puritanism  prevail 
as  factors  in  social  and  municipal  conduct 
should  be  spared  the  corrective  acid  of  this 
play. 

The  scene  opens  at  the  house  of  Beermann, 
who  is  the  president  of  the  local  Society  for  the 
Prevention  of  Vice.  All  the  local  pillars  of  so- 
ciety are  gathered  together  in  festive  compan- 
ionship; there  are  card  play  and  gossip. 

Out  of  the  talk  at  the  card-tables  emerges  this 
essential  bit  of  news:  the  police  have  just  ar- 
rested a  lady  whose  hospitality  has  been  some- 
what notorious,  but  whose  patronage  has  been 
of  the  most  distinguished  sort.  As  one  of  the 
guests  at  Beermann' 's  puts  it,  "  People  have 
been  in  the  habit  of  relaxing  their  too  tense 
morals  a  bit  in  her  house.  I  suppose  the  police 
had  to  see  that  the  grown-up  children  with  bald 
heads  and  whiskers  were  protected  from 
that."  Beermann  grows  more  nervous  as  the 
conversation  goes  on.  Some  one  remarks  that 
the  police  are  likely  to  get  into  trouble  over  the 
thing ;  because  "  one  mustn't  shake  the  founda- 
tions of  the  people's  belief  in  the  privileged 
classes.  That  is  one  of  our  most  cherished  pos- 
sessions. .  .  .  This  case  is  peculiarly  danger- 
ous, because  this  lady  kept  a  diary,  and  that 
diary  has  been  seized."  Beermann  can  play 
cards  no  longer,  he  begins  to  pace  about,  and 


LUDWIG   THOMA'S   "MORAL"     259 

finally  asks  the  woman's  name.  "  Ninon,  Ninon 
d'Hauteville  "  they  tell  him,  and  he,  more  shaken 
than  ever,  asks :  "  And  you  say  she  kept  a 
diary  ?  "  so  that  his  wife  wonders :  "  What  con- 
cern is  it  of  yours?  "  and  the  act  closes  on  his 
retort : 

"  Am  I  president  of  the  Anti-Vice  Society,  or 
am  I  not?" 

The  second  act  takes  place  in  police  head- 
quarters. There  are  scenes  between  various  of- 
ficials, contrasting  the  rigorous  demands  of 
bureaucratic  officialism  with  the  demands  of  that 
unwritten  law  protecting  "  those  Higher  Up." 
These  scenes  apply  in  every  country  alike. 
Then  comes  the  woman  d'Hauteville,  protesting 
against  the  infamy  of  her  arrest.  She  is  full 
of  darkest  hints.  "  If  you  only  knew  who  it  was 
that  had  to  hide  himself  in  the  wardrobe  when 
they  were  searching  my  place!  If  you  only 
knew !  "  The  police  think  to  browbeat  her  by 
telling  her  they  have  her  diary,  so  they  do  not 
really  need  her  further  confession.  They  press 
her  to  tell  the  name  of  the  person  who  hid  in 
the  wardrobe,  to  point  it  out  among  the  other 
names  in  the  book.  She  laughs  and  declares 
some  of  her  guests  were  of  such  degree  that  they 
came  incognito,  and  even  incog,  their  names 
were  not  set  down.  The  police  accomplish 
nothing  in  their  interview  with  her. 

Beerma/nn  arrives  in  great  excitement,  to  pro- 


260          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

test  against  having  the  contents  of  the  diary 
made  public.  Public  morality,  he  declares,  de- 
mands that  such  disclosures  be  avoided;  there 
might  be  most  estimable  fathers  and  husbands 
in  that  list;  whole  families  might  be  made  un- 
happy, and  so  on.  The  police  officials  fancy  he 
has  come  to  congratulate  them,  as  president  of 
the  Anti-Vice  Society,  on  their  energetic  action 
against  the  d'Hauteville  person.  They  tell  him 
not  to  be  anxious;  the  diary  will  not  be  made 
public  except  in  court,  when  this  case  comes  up. 
Beermarm  protests  more  than  ever.  Ensues  this 
bit  of  dialogue : 

Beermann:  It's  not  the  police's  business  to 
provoke  such  a  huge  scandal  as  this.  It  shakes 
the  people's  respect  for  us. 

The  Police  Official:  These  are  the  gentlemen 
(tapping  the  diary)  who  provoked  the  scandal. 

Beermann:  That's  not  a  scandal  if  one  of  us 
lets  himself  go  a  bit  on  the  quiet.  It's  not  a 
scandal  until  you  go  shouting  it  out  for  Tom, 
Dick  and  Harry  to  hear.  ...  I  tell  you,  this 
thing  mustn't  be  done ! 

The  Police  Official:  Mr.  Beermann,  all  honor 
to  the  humane  idea  that  evidently  prompts  you. 
Still,  you  must  admit  that  we  are  only  acting  on 
behalf  of  those  classes  you  have  in  mind. 

Beermann :  No. 

The  Police  Official:  I  say  yes.  Two  weeks 
ago  the  best  people  here  started  a  Society  that 


LUDWIG   THOMA'S  "MORAL"    261 

insists  on  the  need  for  greater  strictness  toward 
immorality. 

Beermann:  Toward  immorality  among  the 
lower  classes,  where  the  thing  too  easily  becomes 
license.  As  president,  I  suppose  I  ought  to 
know  what  we  wanted. 

....  (He  returns  to  this  in  a  later  speech) 
Last  night,  as  I  was  thinking  about  what  a  dis- 
aster this  thing  would  be,  I  asked  myself  the 
question,  Which  is  the  more  important:  To 
have  morals,  or  to  have  people  believe  in  our 
morals  ? 

The  Police  Official:  And  you  found  no  an- 
swer ? 

Beermann:  Oh,  yes,  I  came  to  the  clear  con- 
clusion that  it  is  far  more  important  if  the  peo- 
ple believe  in  our  morals. 

The  Police  Official:  You  didn't  need  a  Soci- 
ety for  that. 

Beermann:  All  the  more.  Being  moral  is 
something  I  can  manage  in  my  room  by  myself ; 
but  there's  no  educational  value  in  that.  The 
important  thing  is  to  declare  one's  moral  con- 
victions in  public.  That  works  beneficially  upon 
the  family,  upon  the  state. 

The  Police  Official:  I  must  say  that  side  of 
it  hadn't  occurred  to  me. 

Beermann:  Just  consider:  it's  the  same  with 
morals  as  with  religion.  One  must  always  give 
the  impression  that  there  is  such  a  thing,  and 


262          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

each  must  believe  that  the  other  has  it.  Do  you 
suppose  there  would  still  be  such  a  thing  as 
religion,  if  the  church  dealt  with  our  sins  in 
public?  She  forgives  them  in  silence;  and  the 
state  too  ought  to  be  as  shrewd  as  that. 

Beermarm  eventually  manages  to  steal  the 
diary,  in  which,  of  course,  his  name  is  with  all 
the  other  respectable  fathers  of  families  in  the 
place.  The  police  president  arrives  to  give  all 
his  underlings  a  vigorous  raking-over  for  lack 
of  tact  in  dealing  with  the  d'Hauteville  case. 
The  person  who  hid  in  the  wardrobe  turns  out 
to  be  the  Highest  Personage  in  the  land,  that 
Man  Higher  Up  —  to  use  the  terms  of  the 
American  politically  controlled  police  —  whom 
it  is  everybody's  business  to  protect  at  all  haz- 
ards. The  police  has  everlastingly  put  its  foot 
into  a  most  dangerous  mess ;  the  problem  even- 
tually is  how  to  hush  up  the  d'Hauteville.  It  is 
she  who  finally  dominates  the  entire  situation. 
Upon  her  depends  the  safety  and  peace  of  the 
whole  community.  She  can  shatter,  with  a 
word,  all  the  family  happiness,  and  all  the  pop- 
ular trust  in  the  governing  classes.  The  thing 
to  do  is  get  her  out  of  the  place.  For  that,  a 
large  sum  of  money  will  have  to  be  paid  to  her 
as  indemnity. 

That  sum  is  furnished  by  the  president  of  the 
Anti-Vice  Society,  Beermann! 


LUDWIG  THOMA'S  "MORAL"    263 

THE  pertinence  of  Thoma's  play  to  every 
modern  capital  of  hypocrisy  is  obvious.  We 
have  only  to  recall  such  cases  as  the  Metropol- 
itan Opera  House  refusal  to  present  Strauss 
and  Wilde's  "  Salome  "  in  New  York ;  Mary 
Garden's  inability  to  play  that  same  part  in 
Chicago,  in  1910,  owing  to  police  prevention ; 
and  the  many  amazing  exhibitions  of  stupidity 
that  London's  County  Council  has  given  since 
first  Mrs.  Ormiston  Chant  attempted  her  cru- 
sade against  the  music-hall  "  promenades." 
The  pertinent  remark  of  M.  Dalmores,  in  the 
Chicago  episode  just  named:  "This  police 
chief,  he  does  not  clean  his  streets,  yet  he  thinks 
to  find  filth  in  opera !  "  deserves,  for  its  shrewd- 
ness and  its  truth,  to  be  recorded  and  remem- 
bered. Then  there  was  the  police  chief  in  New 
Haven  who  stopped  "  Mrs.  Warren's  Profes- 
sion," yet  did  not  some  years  later,  1910,  have 
wit  enough  to  discover  an  attempt  to  play  an 
almost  literal  version  of  the  essentially  French 
farce,  "  Vous  N'Avez  Rien  a  Declarer  ?  "  until 
all  Yale  had  nearly  died  of  joy.  All  such  police 
interference  is  so  delightfully  satirized  in 
"  Moral "  that  the  hearer  or  reader's  laughter 
is  likely  to  oust,  for  a  time,  the  realization  of 
the  serious  indictment  the  play  brings.  Thoma, 
the  while  he  entertains  us  so  vividly,  goes  into 
the  problem  of  the  "  profession  of  Mme. 
d'Hauteville  "  (as  we  may,  for  this,  call  it),  and 


264          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

of  the  Men  Behind,  the  Men  Higher  Up,  so 
deeply  that  no  ironical  critic  of  modern  life  can 
afford  to  miss  this  document:  the  comedy 
"  Moral." 

Since  "  Moral "  first  appeared,  at  end  of 
1908,  it  has  been  played  constantly  in  Germany. 
It  surely  deserves  appreciation  elsewhere.  One 
of  the  many  Play  Societies  that  make  somewhat 
timid  trials  of  this  or  that  bit  of  new  drama  in 
London  gave  a  version  of  it  one  Sunday  night 
not  long  ago ;  from  the  published  comment  one 
gathered  that  the  English  adaptation  must  have 
been  more  than  usually  uninspired  by  either 
taste  or  wit.  Since  "  Moral "  Thoma  has  re- 
turned again  to  his  humorous  depiction  of  peas- 
ant life,  and  before  I  left  Wiesbaden  last  Sep- 
tember people  were  roaring  in  laughter  at  his 
newest  farce,  "First  Class"  (Erster  Classe). 
But  it  is  through  "  Moral  "  that  Ludwig  Thoma 
comes  into  the  ranks  of  those  who  have  swung 
the  German  drama  up  to  where  it  deserves  the 
world's  attention. 


XIV 

VIENNA'S  ESSENCE:    SCHNITZ:LER 

IN  approaching,  from  the  easy  point  of  Mu- 
nich, whose  jovial,  genial,  artistically  sophisti- 
cated, yet  rustically  spontaneous  spirit  Ludwig 
Thoma  expresses  so  admirably  in  everything  he 
writes,  some  dramatists  who  stand  for  Vienna, 
it  is  essential  that  we  dwell  a  moment  upon  cer- 
tain most  illuminating  conclusions  to  be  reached 
by  studying  the  map  of  central  Europe.  That 
map  is  full  of  revelation  in  what  it  tells  us  of 
the  effect  of  climate  on  temperament. 

Temperament!  Far  better  the  curt  German 
elision  of  the  word  "  artistic  "  from  this  phrase ; 
surely  few  other  phrases,  not  even  those  which 
include  the  word  "  bohemian,"  are  by  now  so 
abominable  to  people  of  fine  taste!  The  Ger- 
man irony  is  simpler,  briefer.  When  a  lovely 
damsel  trips  it  too  merrily  down  the  primrose 
path  of  dalliance  the  Germans  shrug  her  case 
away  in  few  words :  "  Das  Madel  hat  Tempera- 
ment ! "  They  put,  in  short,  these  forthright 
Germans,  this  quality  of  "  temperament "  into 
265 


266          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

the  same  clause  with  that  which  brings  so  many 
"  actresses  "  into  the  police  reports  of  Amer- 
ican newspapers.  How  went  the  blithe  refrain 
of  the  merry  jumble  of  melody  and  mockery 
they  had  half  a  dozen  years  ago  or  so  at  the 
Metropol  Theater  in  Berlin: 

"  Man  muss  patent  sein, 
Voll  Temperament  sein, 
So  'n  bischen  tra-la-la,  la-la,  la-la,  la-la  .  .  ." 

That  was  in  a  piece  called  "  The  Men  from 
Maxim's,"  which  rivalled  for  boldness  the  "  re- 
vues "  which  Paris  applauds  annually  at  such 
theatres  as  the  Marigny,  and  elsewhere.  Those 
same  annual  spectacles  at  the  Metropol,  in  Ber- 
lin, were  as  expressive  of  Germany's  utter  aban- 
donment of  old  parochial  restraints  in  all  the 
arts  of  entertainment,  as  were  the  Uberbrettl' 
and  all  the  literary  manifestations  we  have  been 
considering. 

Despite  the  abominable  associations  of  the 
word  "  temperament "  we  must,  as  before  in 
Hartleben's  case,  use  it  here  in  tracing,  on  our 
map,  the  influences  of  climate,  of  soil  —  soil  in 
the  large  sense  implying  heritage  from  centu- 
ries, implying  birth  and  breeding.  Whether 
you  have  observed  it  or  not,  you  have,  with  some 
few  casual  digressions,  been  wandering  steadily 
south  with  me.  Liliencron,  for  instance,  was 
our  point  of  departure  from  the  north.  Com- 
ing from  what  was  then  Danish  territory  he  re- 


VIENNA'S  ESSENCE:    SCHNITZLER   267 

mained  to  the  end,  through  all  his  fine  romantic 
lyric  minstrelsy,  the  Prussian  officer.  In  his 
most  jovial  carol  sounded  the  northern  melan- 
choly. Dehmel,  though  he  seemed  erotic,  was 
philosopher  in  his  passion.  Sudermann,  again, 
was  at  his  best,  was  most  directly  expressive  of 
himself,  when  he  was  describing  the  lives  of  the 
"  Pommersche  Junker,"  the  agrarian  aristocrats 
of  the  most  northerly  and  easterly  provinces  of 
Germany.  Relentless  earnestness  was  the  note 
of  even  his  most  humorous  pages.  Sudermann 
is  never  really  gay.  In  "  The  Song  of  Songs  " 
(Das  Hohe  Lied)  it  was  the  tragedy  of  "  tem- 
perament," not  its  sparkle,  that  he  stressed.  It 
was  not  until  one  came  to  southwestern  Ger- 
many, to  Bavaria,  to  the  Rhineland,  that  the 
real  care-free  minstrel  spirit  of  the  newer  Ger- 
man spirit  came  to  expression. 

Here  the  Past  obtrudes  once  more.  From  the 
primary  collection  of  medieval  minstrelsy  of 
which  we  have  knowledge,  the  "  Carmina  Bu- 
rana,"  now  in  Munich,  it  is  clear  that  the  bulk 
of  Wandering  Students'  songs  of  love  and  wine 
originated  in  Bavaria  and  the  Rhineland. 
Where  they  originated,  then,  as  you  have  seen 
from  these  pages  of  mine,  they  came  in  our  own 
time  to  their  most  effective  revival.  Almost  any 
Bierbaum  ballad  might,  for  its  essential,  pagan, 
spontaneous  flavor,  appear,  without  imperti- 
nence, in  the  "  Carmina  Burana "  collection. 


268          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

In  Bavaria,  and  thereabouts,  the  really  Teuton 
joyousness  has  always  been  at  home;  and  in 
our  day  Munich  has  definitely  come  to  express 
most  clearly  all  that  in  Germany's  arts  is  most 
racial,  most  characteristic,  and,  therein,  most 
worthy  of  international  regard.  The  same 
racial  flavor,  the  welding  of  artist  with  son  of 
the  soil,  is  in  Bierbaum  and  Thoma. 

Wherever  they  may  have  been  born,  most  of 
these  men  found,  at  one  time  or  another,  their" 
most  stimulating  atmosphere  in  Munich.  Even 
in  the  abnormal,  eccentric  Wedekind  the  genial 
artistic  air  of  Munich  found  its  welcome ;  it  was 
in  Munich,  among  the  "  Hanging  Judges " 
(which  I  choose  as  fairly  indicating  the  "  Elf 
Scharf richer  "),  that  Wedekind  gave  the  Uber- 
brettl'  public  some  of  his  most  astounding  and 
insulting  performances;  his  only  moments  of 
something  like  merry  minstrelsy  were  Munich 
moments;  and  it  is  to  Munich  that  he  has  al- 
ways returned.  It  is  this  bit  of  German  soil  that 
has  most  developed  all  the  natural,  spontaneous, 
singing  spirits  of  the  past,  and  of  to-day. 
Those  whose  craft  has  been  greater  than  their 
nature  have  been  here  or  there ;  the  real  heart 
of  artistic  Germany  beats  most  freely  in  Mu- 
nich. The  Prinz-Regenten  Theater  for  music; 
the  Kuenstler  Theater  for  plays ;  Germany  has 
nothing  much  finer  to  show  than  those.  May 
we  not  even  suppose  that  the  first  of  the  world's 


VIENNA'S  ESSENCE:    SCHNITZLER   269 

stage-directors,  the  greatest  of  its  really  crea- 
tive theatric  producers,  Max  Reinhardt  himself 
(only  David  Belasco  in  America  approaches  this 
man  in  practical  genius  for  the  theatre's  exter- 
nals), may  some  day  forsake  Berlin  and  move  to 
Munich  ? 

FOE  sheer  craft,  versatility,  lightness  of 
touch  and  temper,  we  go  to  Vienna.  For  years 
the  northern  Germans  sneered  at  Viennese  tal- 
ent; they  declared  it  was  never  more  than 
merely  clever;  it  never  went  far  or  deep.  They 
refused  to  take  it  seriously.  "  Mere  litera- 
ture ! "  they  said  of  it,  refusing  to  consider  it 
as  properly  creative,  permanent,  vitally  reflect- 
ive of  life.  Power  and  genius  were  denied  the 
Viennese.  Grace,  charm,  style  —  yes.  The 
northern  Germans,  it  is  true,  forgot,  in  these 
detractions,  that  grace,  charm,  and  style  — 
lightness  of  touch,  as  well  as  depth  of  feeling  — 
were  also  in  those  giants  from  the  Rhineland, 
Goethe  and  Heine.  (Always,  you  see,  the  great 
German  singers,  have  come  from  that  region 
near  the  Isar  or  the  Rhine!) 

Not  Paris  itself  has  more  delicacy  in  treat- 
ment of  the  indelicate  than  Vienna.  That  is  as 
true  of  life  as  of  literature ;  there  are  those  who 
say  that  it  is  true  of  love  also.  In  all  the  eti- 
quette of  art  Vienna  knows  no  rival.  The 
northerners  declared  it  manner  and  nothing 


270          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

more.  They  pointed  out  that  in  every  expres- 
sion of  the  north-German  spirit  (they  im- 
pressed Nietzsche,  the  Slav,  into  this  argument 
of  theirs!),  in  Liliencron,  Conradi,  Hauptmann, 
Dehmel,  Stephan  George  or  Wedekind,  individ- 
ual or  even  eccentric  as  it  might  seem,  something 
of  a  racial  northern  style  remained,  to  keep 
them  sweet  for  posterity.  In  Vienna,  on  the 
contrary,  there  were  simply  a  number  of  very 
exquisite  artificers,  formalists,  mannerists,  who 
would  be  remembered  no  longer  than  last  year's 
fashion  in  frocks.  Feminists,  in  short  —  that 
was  the  concluding  verdict  the  northerners 
passed  upon  the  Viennese. 

The  man  who  did  most,  in  practice  and  in 
program,  to  develop  these  same  stylistic  nice- 
ties of  the  modern  Viennese  writers,  was  also 
the  man  who  eventually  suffered  most  keenly 
just  that  belittling  which  the  more  solemn 
northerners  for  years  sent  southward :  Hermann 
Bahr.  The  irony  of  fate  was  eventually  to  di- 
rect a  Bahr  play  into  such  international  success 
as  had  not  in  our  time  come  to  any  other  play 
in  German.  "  The  Concert,"  as  has  already 
been  indicated  in  my  chapter  on  Hartleben,  has 
emphasized  more  than  any  other  modern  play 
the  dominant  position  of  the  German  stage. 
With  the  work  of  Bahr,  however,  I  prefer  to 
conclude,  rather  than  begin  this  quick  sketch  of 
Viennese  accomplishment. 


VIENNA'S  ESSENCE:    SCHNITZLER   271 

THE  Austrian  drama  of  to-day  is  typified  in 
the  work  of  Arthur  Schnitzler.  In  his  work 
were  all  those  qualities  which  marked  the  con- 
trast between  the  Viennese  temper  and  the  Ger- 
man. Where  Berlin  insisted  on  truth,  at  the 
expense  of  beauty,  Vienna  preferred  beauty  to 
everything  else.  As  in  its  court  and  its  lesser 
circles  Vienna  stands  for  all  the  aristocratic  re- 
finements, so  the  gestures  and  tones  of  the  most 
sophisticated  intelligence,  of  the  most  patrician 
outlook,  are  the  paramount  concerns  in  Viennese 
art.  All  these  gestures,  tones,  and  points  of 
view  have  been  simply  the  proper  appointments 
for  the  lovely  women,  the  sensuous  music,  and 
the  enchanting  cuisine  for  which  Vienna  has 
long  been  rightly  famous.  All  that  rises  out  of 
that  air  has  had  fascination,  grace,  insinuation 
and  intrigue.  Neither  tremendous  passion  nor 
tremendous  problems  have  stirred,  to  all  ap- 
pearances, those  polite  artists  of  Vienna.  Pas- 
sion might  be  there,  but  what  was  to  be  artis- 
tically expressed  was,  rather,  the  witty  or  iron- 
ically mournful  surfaces  of  passion.  Under  the 
almost  diabolically  clever  flippancies  in  dialogue 
there  may  be  tragedy  ;  but  neither  in  life  nor  art 
is  it  good  form,  in  Vienna,  to  let  so  middle-class 
an  article  as  tragedy  appear  naked. 

All  these  essentially  Austrian  qualities  were 
markedly  in  Schnitzler.  The  ironies  and  mock- 
eries in  a  sort  of  twilight  land  of  love  engaged 


272          MASKS  AND  MINSTEKLS 

him  time  and  again.  Reading  him  was  to  real- 
ize that  not  even  Paris  takes  "  sweethearts  and 
wives "  more  for  granted  than  Vienna  does. 
The  rest  of  the  toast,  you  may  remember,  goes 
"  May  they  never  meet !  "  In  most  of  Schnitz- 
ler's  plays  and  stories  the  prevailing  question  is 
just  how  to  be  off  with  the  old  love,  and  on 
with  the  new.  It  would  be  hard  to  imagine  any 
variation  in  this  large  problem  that  this  writer 
has  not  elaborated.  I  do  not  think  either  Mar- 
cel Prevost,  or  Henri  Becque  has  gone  farther 
into  the  finesses  of  the  philandering  mind. 

My  first  vivid  appreciation  of  the  dramatist 
Schnitzler  came  some  years  ago  when  his  "  Lie- 
belei  "  was  played  at  the  old  Irving  Place  Thea- 
tre with  Agnes  Sorma  in  the  leading  part.  How 
many,  out  of  all  the  plays  seen  in  a  lifetime, 
contain  anything  at  all  to  keep  them  quick 
in  one's  memory  ?  But  the  sensations  "  Lie- 
belei  "  gave  me  have  lived  through  a  welter  of 
other  plays;  there  was  something  in  the  trag- 
edy of  the  forsaken  sweetheart,  when  she  learns 
her  lover  has  fallen  in  a  duel  about  another 
woman,  in  her  words  (I  quote  at  a  venture 
from  that  early  memory !)  :  "  Was  bin  denn  Ich 
gewesen?  "  there  was  even  something  so  haunt- 
ing in  the  absurd  refrain  of  the  barrel-organ  be- 
neath the  window  where  she  sits  alone,  awaiting 
the  lover  who  does  not  come  —  that  I  have 
never  since  had  overmuch  patience  with  those 


VIENNA'S  ESSENCE:    SCHNITZLER   273 

pretending  that  in  the  sheerly  intellectual  bril- 
liance of  the  Viennese  there  was  no  real  depth, 
no  heart.  "  Liebelei  "  has  been  attempted  in 
English  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  In  Eng- 
land, at  end  of  1909,  it  was  called  "  Light-o'- 
Love,"  a  distinctly  better  title  than  "  The  Reck- 
oning," under  which  label  it  was  played  in  New 
York  at  the  Berkeley  Lyceum  with  Katharine 
Grey  in  the  part  Sorma  had  played.  This  New 
York  performance  in  English  I  saw,  and  while 
it  had  merits,  it  failed  altogether  in  passing  to 
the  audience  that  twilight  blend  of  melancholy 
and  gaiety  which  informs  the  original.  Only 
an  English  Schnitzler  could,  I  am  convinced, 
adequately  render  the  essential  Schnitzler 
charm,  his  power  of  insinuating  both  laughter 
and  tears. 

Always,  in  the  Schnitzler  plays,  we  move 
among  delicate,  amusing  and  intriguing  love- 
affairs.  No  grim  questions  of  right  and  wrong 
are  allowed  to  assail  us.  How,  most  smoothly, 
most  politely,  most  delicately,  is  this  lover  to 
say  good-by  to  that  sweetheart ;  or  how  is  this 
lovely  lady  to  inform  her  cavalier  that  she  is 
tired  of  him  —  to  all  appearances  we  are  never 
witnessing  problems  any  deeper  than  those. 
We  move  in  a  realm  of  beauty;  ugliness  is 
never  allowed  to  obtrude.  Neither  He  nor  She 
ever  vows  constancy ;  as  long  as  the  romance 
lasts,  until  the  bloom  of  novelty  and  wit  is  off, 


274          MASKS  AND  MINSTBJELS 

in  short;  there  is  no  more  in  these  little  love- 
affairs  than  that.  The  etiquette  of  the  liaison, 
in  short,  is  nowhere  more  charmingly  expressed 
than  in  Schnitzler. 

What  in  "  Liebelei "  was  green,  in  this 
dramatist's  later  plays  ripened  to  a  far  surer 
intellectual  effect.  In  his  cycle  of  one-act  plays 
collected  under  the  title  "  Anatol "  we  find  him, 
I  think,  at  his  most  essential.  Here  is  crystal- 
lized that  viewpoint  of  the  man-of-the-world 
and  the  witty  sentimentalist  which  distinguishes 
Vienna  aristocracy.  Some  of  his  one-act  pieces 
have  been  performed  in  English,  as  "  The 
Green  Cockatoo  "  and  "  Literature."  Charlotte 
Wiehe  and  other  actresses  have  given  "  Ab- 
schieds  Souper "  as  "  Souper  d'Adieu "  in 
French.  There  is  no  cleverer  one-act  piece  in 
any  language  than  this.  In  spite  of  several 
longer  plays,  novels,  etc.,  existing  from 
Schnitzler's  pen,  his  talent  has  found  its  fittest 
expression  in  the  one-act  drama.  For  just  an 
episode,  for  the  perfectly  graceful  exploitation 
of  just  one  mood,  his  talent  has  sufficed.  There 
are  hardly  any  moods,  whims  or  caprices  in  that 
twilight-land  between  passion  and  philandering, 
which  he  has  not  analyzed  delicately  for  our 
diversion.  He  is  supremely  the  analyst  of  light 
love.  To  read  him  is  to  understand  the  wit  and 
the  inconstancy,  the  politeness  and  the  unscru- 
pulousness,  of  the  Viennese  soul. 


VIENNA'S  ESSENCE:    SCHNITZLER   275 

If  Von  Wolzogen  invented  the  label  "  das 
siisse  Madel  "  —  the  "  dear  girl,"  who  may  be 
married,  or  may  not  — •  Schnitzler  invented  the 
type.  It  is  she  who  recurs  in  all  his  pages.  To 
enjoy  the  moment,  that  is  all  she  asks.  She  has 
all  the  qualities  of  a  Viennese  waltz :  "  Sentimen- 
tal gaiety,  smiling  mischievous  melancholy  — 
peace  and  content  stream  from  her  to  you  —  if 
you  bring  her  a  bunch  of  violets,  there  is  a  tiny 
tear  in  the  corner  of  her  eye."  For  Schnitzler 
the  essential  is  always  make-believe  of  one  sort 
or  another:  playing  at  love,  playing  at  death, 
playing  at  comedies.  His  materials  are  slight, 
but  he  uses  them  with  finesses  of  artistic  grace 
and  charm  that  give  them  dignity  and  distinc- 
tion. He  voices  Vienna  and  its  refinement,  as 
well  as  the  simpler  sentiment  of  the  Austrian 
people. 

Though  Schnitzler  seldom  goes  beyond  the 
eternal  duel  between  Her  and  Him  —  at  the 
most  he  lets  his  witty  lightnings  flash  about  the 
eternal  triangle  which  perpetually  emphasizes 
the  imperfectly  monogamous  nature  of  our 
kind  —  the  dialogues  he  supplies  for  that  duel 
are  not  easily  surpassed  for  sheer  cleverness; 
not  even  the  Parisians  are  more  skilful  than  he 
in  the  verbal  scintillations  of  light  love. 

His  long  novel  on  the  problem  of  the  Sem- 
itic element  in  Austrian  society,  "  Der  Weg 
ins  Freie,"  has  been  generally  praised,  and 


276          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

went  into  more  editions  even  than  his  famous 
"  Lieutenant  Gustl',"  but  I  found  it  somewhat 
tedious.  If  it  proved  that  Schnitzler  could  keep 
up,  so  to  say,  a  strong  head  of  steam  for  more 
than  a  mere  novelette,  or  one-act  play,  it  proved 
his  essential  talent  still  in  the  quicker  expression 
of  a  single  mood.  Where  I  have  found  him 
most  delightful,  most  vocative  of  all  the  essen- 
tial Viennese  qualities,  has  been  in  such  a  cycle 
of  episodes  as  "  Anatol,"  or  in  "  Comtesse 
Mizzi."  He  has  never  gone  farther  than  that; 
the  last-named  play,  indeed,  of  1909,  is  an  ex- 
act return  to  the  "Anatol"  manner  of  1893; 
none  of  his  divagations  away  from  that  manner 
has  been  of  great  artistic  importance. 

Reading  "  Comtesse  Mizzi "  as  I  did,  last 
year,  in  one  of  the  most  delightful  of  those 
older  German  inns  which  it  was  the  fashion  to 
call  The  Four  Seasons,  namely,  the  one  in  Wies- 
baden, where  I  was  surrounded  by  princes  and 
counts  and  their  womenkind  from  all  the  cor- 
ners of  Europe :  Russians,  Bulgarians,  Hunga- 
rians, Slavs,  Poles  and  the  Lord  knows  what 
else ;  where  the  "  living  fast  and  loving  loose  " 
(to  quote  my  own  version  of  Bierbaum)  atmos- 
phere of  remote  aristocracies  reached,  eventu- 
ally, even  the  most  anarchic  nose  —  I  realized 
with  peculiar  vividness  the  accuracy  of  Schnitz- 
ler's  ironic  strokes.  What  could  be  more  de- 
lightful, for  instance,  than  the  visit,  to  Cov/nt 


VIENNA'S  ESSENCE:    SCHNITZLEE   277 

Arpad  and  his  daughter,  of  that  Lolo,  the  lady 
with  whom  the  Count  has  had  a  lifelong  affair, 
who  is  now  about  to  marry  a  well-to-do 
burgher  in  Vienna?  What  could  be  more 
charming  than  the  attitude  toward  Lolo  of 
Mizzi?  What  more  moving  than  the  embrace 
the  latter  has  for  Lolo,  in  a  sort  of  tender  ap- 
preciation of  what,  in  mere  comfort  and  solace, 
the  latter  has  been  to  her  father?  How,  in  face 
of  such  magic  as  Schnitzler's,  shall  one  come  to 
utter  such  words  as  "  immorality  "  or  "  shatter- 
ing the  foundations  of  society  "  ?  No,  no ;  our 
good  physician  knows  his  Austrian  society  bet- 
ter than  we  do;  he  is  content  to  heal  its  body 
and  dissect  its  soul;  he  knows  better  than  to 
try  more  than  that. 

Yet,  by  his  very  charm  Schnitzler  does  carry 
danger.  His  eroticism  is  far  more  insidious 
than  the  brutalities  of  Wedekind.  His  pictures 
of  the  patrician  fastidiousness  in  amatory  eti- 
quette which  characterizes  peculiarly  the  last 
and  staunchest  stronghold  of  aristocracy  in  the 
modern  world,  Vienna,  are  so  enchanting  that 
they  lure  us  toward  licentiousness  far  more 
temptingly  than  do  the  ruffianism  and  the  grim- 
aces of  the  author  of  the  "  Countess  Russalka." 
One  countess  against  another,  you  have  between 
Countess  Mizzi  and  Countess  Russalka  the  essen- 
tial difference  between  Schnitzler  and  Wedekind. 
Nothing  Wedekind  has  written  is  more  devilishly 


278          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

perverting  to  an  unrestrained  imagination  than 
that  other  cycle  of  Schnitzler  dialogues, 
"  Reigen,"  between  which  and  "  Anatol "  his 
art  is  bounded. 

No  writer  of  the  first  rank  in  any  language 
has  surpassed  the  ingenuity  with  which  in 
"  Reigen  "  the  suggestion  of  the  unprintable 
is  welded  into  most  brilliant  conversations. 
"  Reigen  "  expresses  the  last  word  in  Schnitz- 
ler's  erotic  cynicism;  it  contains  his  mocking 
philosophy  of  life,  which,  as  aforesaid,  is  all 
the  more  infectious  through  its  faultless  man- 
ner. In  "  Reigen  "  are  ten  dialogues ;  and  I 
need  do  no  more  than  tell  you  that  the  cycle 
of  what  most  would  call  illegitimate  eroticism  is 
made  into  a  perfect  circle  thus:  the  first  con- 
versation is  between  a  wench  and  a  soldier ;  the 
second  between  the  soldier  and  a  chambermaid ; 
the  next  between  the  chambermaid  and  a  young 
gentleman ;  the  next  between  the  young  gentle- 
man and  a  young  married  woman ;  the  next 
between  the  young  married  woman  and  her  hus- 
band ;  the  next  between  the  husband  and  "  das 
Siisse  Madel "  (Let  us  leave  the  phrase  in  its 
Viennese  form ! )  ;  the  next  between  the  "  Siisse 
Madel  "  and  a  poet ;  then  between  the  poet  and 
an  actress;  then  between  the  actress  and  a 
count;  and  lastly  between  the  count  and  the 
wench  of  the  first  page  in  the  book.  A  vicious 
circle,  literally ;  each  episode,  you  are  to  know, 


VIENNA'S  ESSENCE:    SCHNITZLER   279 

ends  in  just  one  and  the  same  way ;  from  which 
you  may  gather  how  clever  the  dialogue  must 
be  to  make  this  book  possible  for  circulation 
even  in  Vienna.  No  lesser  artist  could  have  con- 
trived to  make  this  book  survive  the  hideous 
fleshliness  under  all  its  specious  flippancy. 
Schnitzler  was  never  more  diabolically  clever 
than  in  "  Reigen,"  never  more  the  mouthpiece 
of  the  utterly  unmoral  viveur's  philosophy. 
Not  Flaubert's  Emma  Bovary  herself  communi- 
cated more  insidiously  all  the  subtle  poisons  in 
human  passion.  Sheerly  physical  eroticism 
could  hardly  be  more  illusively  cloaked  in  divert- 
ing words. 

The  people  who  have  been  wont  to  think  Ger- 
man a  clumsy  medium  for  finesse  should  learn 
otherwise  from  Schnitzler.  French  has  done 
nothing  subtler  than  he  with  his  Viennese  tem- 
per and  his  quick  ear  for  the  very  note  of 
Vienna,  whether  of  the  palace  or  of  the  street. 
Appreciation  of  Schnitzler  has  come  slowly  for 
English  peoples,  chiefly,  I  hold,  because  the 
witty  essence  of  his  lines  has  evaporated,  time 
and  again,  in  unintelligent  translation. 

If  Schnitzler  is  to-day  one  of  the  keenest 
analysts  of  the  sophiscated  modern  soul,  in  man 
or  woman,  we  must  remember  that  behind  his 
art  as  writer  there  has  always  been  the  disen- 
chanting wisdom  of  the  practising  physician. 
Schnitzler  was  born  in  1862  in  Vienna.  His 


280          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

father  was  a  doctor;  he  studied  medicine,  and 
took  his  degree  in  1885,  seeing  active  hospital 
service  from  1886  to  1888.  Since  then  he  has 
an  extensive  private  practice  in  Vienna.  Be- 
sides his  collection  of  one-act  plays,  "  Anatol," 
1893,  "Der  Grime  Kakadu,"  1899,  "  Leben- 
dige  Stunden,"  1902,  and  "  Marionetten," 
1906,  most  important  of  his  works  are  the 
drama,  "The  Call  of  Life"  (Der  Ruf  des 
Lebens),  1905;  the  novels,  "  Frau  Bertha  Gar- 
Ian  "  and  "  Der  Weg  ins  Freie ; "  such  short 
stories  as  "  Dammerseelen "  (Twilight  Souls) 
the  (1909)  one-act  comedy,  "  Countess  Mizzi," 
and  the  huge  drama  (its  cast  of  parts  so  large 
as  to  be  a  mob!)  "The  Young  Medardus," 
1910.  His  monologue,  "  Lieutenant  Gustl'," 
which  most  succinctly  and  dramatically  ex- 
presses the  implacable  dominance  of  "  the  word 
of  an  officer  and  a  gentleman "  in  Austrian 
affairs,  has  been  referred  to  in  an  earlier  chap- 
ter, in  its  relation  to  "  Rosenmontag  "  and  other 
essentially  military  plays. 

FROM  Schnitzler's  vivid  sketch  of  the  Aus- 
trian officer's  philosophy  in  "  Leutnant  Gustl  " 
to  another  brilliant  and  penetrating  miniaturist 
of  the  same  subject,  the  writer  calling  himself 
Roda  Roda,  is  a  logical  step.  Although  Roda 
Roda  has  never  pretended  to  be  anything  more 
than  a  brilliant  entertainer,  his  skill  in  the  elab- 


VIENNA'S  ESSENCE:    SCHNITZLER   281 

oration  of  the  anecdotic  is  not  below  that  of 
Hartleben's,  and  in  his  military  sketches  he  has 
opened  up  an  entirely  new  region.  The  region, 
namely,  of  those  more  or  less  Slav  borders  of 
the  Austro-Hungarian  empire  where  the  Ger- 
man language,  if  existent  at  all,  is  curiously  mu- 
tilated. Of  the  life  of  garrison,  and  campaign, 
and  peasant,  in  those  provinces  where  for  cen- 
turies certain  professedly  uncivilized  borderers 
have  been  Europe's  bulwarks  against  Asia, 
Roda  Roda  has  given  us  many  sparkling  and 
penetrating  pages.  If  you  would  understand 
that  curious  amalgam  of  races  and  beliefs, 
Turks,  Mussulmans,  Jews,  Slavs,  Bulgarians, 
Croatians  and  what  not,  Roda  Roda  will  at 
least  fascinate  you  with  the  richness  of  its 
romance.  In  volume  after  volume  of  stories  and 
anecdotes  he  has  mined  for  us  in  that  field. 

I  recall  one  story  especially,  "  Der  Rittmeis- 
ter"  (The  Major),  in  the  collection  happily 
called  "  Rum,  Tobacco  and  Accursed  Love " 
(Der  Schnaps,  Der  Rauchtabak,  und  die  Ver- 
fluchte  Liebe),  which  dissects  human  courage  so 
keenly,  that  it  should  rank  with  what  Bernard 
Shaw  and  other  iconoclasts  have  done  in  that 
direction.  There  is  more  humor  in  Roda  Roda 
than  in  Schnitzler,  when  it  comes  to  army  life 
and  the  citizen  life  that  surrounds  it;  though 
the  intentions  are  slighter  throughout,  though 
merely  anecdote  or  fable  often  hold  his  little 


282          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

bit  of  comedy,  as  entertainer  he  does  not  fall 
far  behind  the  Viennese  master. 

As  playwright  Roda  Roda  first  came  into 
general  notice  through  the  episode,  just 
about  a  year  ago,  of  his  comedy,  "  Feldherrn- 
hiigel,"  being  stopped  by  the  Viennese  censor. 
In  this  play  he  (in  collaboration  with  another) 
put  much  delicious  satire  against  that  obstinate 
woodenheadedness  in  the  mere  externals  of 
routine  which  obtains  more  in  the  Austro-Hun- 
garian  than  any  other  army  system  in  the  world. 
If  you  would  have  a  notion  of  what  Feldherrn- 
hiigel  means,  you  must  understand  that  in  the 
great  army  manoeuvres  —  and  if  possible  in 
battles  themselves  —  the  general  and  his  staff 
choose  some  slight  eminence,  some  rise  in  the 
ground,  from  which  to  survey  and  direct  opera- 
tions. Feldherr  is  the  general  commanding; 
Hiigel  is  hillock. 

Whether  in  his  stories  or  plays  Roda  Roda  is 
ironically  sketching  the  Austro-Hungarian  in 
camp,  in  garrison,  or  merely  in  love,  he  is 
equally  arresting.  Besides  "  Feldherrnhiigel  " 
his  play,  "  Dana  Petrowitsch,"  deserves  men- 
tion, and  from  the  Servian  he  has  translated 
Branislaw  G.  Nuschitsch's  one-act  piece,  "  Knez 
od  Sembrerije." 

Roda  Roda  is  another  of  those  now  promi- 
nent talents  first  fostered  by  Simplicissimus  and 
Jugend.  His  name  is,  or  was,  Sandor  F.  L. 


VIENNA'S  ESSENCE:    SCHNITZLER   283 

Roda,  and  he  was  born  April  13,  1872,  in 
Pussta  Zdenci.  He  served  as  officer  in  a  regi- 
ment of  Croatian  artillery,  but  left  the  army 
to  devote  himself  to  writing.  Pussta  Zdenci 
was  part  of  a  huge  Slavonic  estate  that  Roda's 
father  managed.  Before  he  entered  the  army 
he  studied  law  a  little  in  Vienna.  Of  late  years 
he  has  lived  in  Berlin,  and  is  now  of  Munich. 
His  pen  name  of  Roda  Roda  has  been  duly  sanc- 
tioned by  the  government. 

In  Roda  Roda  we  reach,  in  our  course  down 
the  map  of  the  German  countries,  the  farthest 
Oriental  borderland.  He  alone  has  opened  up 
for  our  entertainment  and  enlightenment  that 
curious  welter  of  peoples,  traditions  and  cus- 
toms, part  Teuton,  part  Slav.  His  pen  sketches 
Ruthenians,  Dalmatians,  and  Turks  with  equal 
vividness.  He  gives  us  the  Austro-Hungarian 
aristocrat,  civil  or  military,  and  he  also  gives  us 
the  peasants,  the  peddlers,  and  the  usurers,  al- 
ways to  be  found  near  great  camps  or  great  es- 
tates. Of  the  semi-German,  semi-Slav  Orient 
in  Europe,  Roda  Roda  is  the  foremost  por- 
trayer.  There  is  not  a  language,  not  a  dialect 
of  those  regions  that  he  has  not  mastered  in 
order  to  add  this  province  to  German  literature. 


XV 

HUGO    VON    HOFFMANSTHAL 

WHAT  is  most  exquisite  in  the  aestheticism  of 
Vienna  found  its  finest  expression  in  Hugo  von 
Hoffmansthal.  In  Stephan  George,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  Rhineland  had  given  an  artist  whose 
aim  was,  above  all,  to  be  artistic;  in  Vienna  a 
somewhat  similar  attitude  toward  nature,  eleva- 
ting the  orchid,  so  to  say,  above  the  rose,  had 
marked  Felix  Dormann.  These  aesthetes,  whom 
the  rest  of  the  world  came  to  consider  typical 
of  Viennese  art,  were  engaged  in  fusing  wher- 
ever possible  all  the  artifices  of  all  the  arts  for 
the  enrichment  of  their  own  medium.  Artistic 
art  was  their  end  and  aim.  To  experience  art, 
rather  than  life,  was  their  wish. 

Sheerly  as  an  aesthetic  rhetorician  Hugo  von 
Hoffmansthal  is  nothing  less  than  remarkable. 
He  has  succeeded  in  writing  a  German  line  as 
musical  as  one  of  D'Annunzio's,  with  whom  he 
has  inevitably  to  be  compared.  His  words  are 
full  of  all  color,  all  music,  all  line,  of  all,  in 
short,  that  may  be  merged  from  all  the  other 
arts.  Form,  outline,  words;  those  are  his  all. 
284 


HUGO  VON   HOFFMANSTHAL        285 

Neither  invention  nor  creation  are  his.  He 
chose  to  work  in  the  drama,  and  the  world  has 
come  to  know  him  as  dramatist,  yet  he  has  never 
been  more  than  an  artist  in  rhetoric  who  sought 
the  form  of  drama. 

Von  Hoffmansthal  was  born,  1874,  in  Vienna, 
of  well-to-do  people.  At  seventeen  he  wrote  his 
first  dramatic  poem;  at  nineteen  he  wrote  his 
play,  "  Death  and  the  Fool  "  (Der  Tor  und  der 
Tod),  which  he  signed  "  Loris."  Hermann 
Bahr  first  took  "  Loris  "  to  be  a  Frenchman 
using  German;  then,  having  been  assured  he 
was  an  Austrian,  he  insisted  he  must  be  some 
diplomat,  of  about  fifty  years  of  age,  long  resi- 
dent in  one  of  the  foreign  embassies.  Upon 
which  there  appeared,  one  day,  this  nineteen- 
year-old  youth,  Von  Hoffmansthal,  proving  to 
be  "  Loris."  He  had  already  absorbed  most  of 
the  arts,  domestic  and  foreign,  of  his  period, 
and  all  those  commingled  in  his  pure  and  pre- 
cious verse.  His  first  work,  "  Gestern  "  (Yes- 
terday), was  published  in  1891,  when  Germany 
was  full  of  Independent  Theatres,  of  influences 
from  Ibsen  and  others.  Upon  all  those  influ- 
ences, all  those  revivals  of  a  new  nationalism 
Von  Hoffmansthal  deliberately  turned  his  back, 
searching  out,  for  his  artifices  in  words,  the 
channels  of  ancient  myth  and  history  that  had 
engaged  the  antiquarians  of  the  futile  period 
which  followed  Goethe's  death.  What  distin- 


286          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

guishes  him  from  those  other  futilities  is  his 
extraordinary  genius  for  making  German  verse 
beautiful.  All  the  world  by  now  knows  his  ver- 
sions of  "  Elektra  "  and  "  GEdipus."  Through 
the  music  of  Richard  Strauss  the  former  went 
farther  than  most  tragedies  in  verse,  yet 
"(Edipus  and  the  Sphinx"  (as  the  full  title 
runs),  1906,  is  the  greater  piece  of  workman- 
ship. 

Exquisite  taste  and  feeling  for  beauty  mark 
this  writing.  In  his  words  is  the  intoxication  of 
music,  and  of  melancholy  —  that  Viennese  mel- 
ancholy which  is  also  in  Schnitzler.  Colors  and 
forms  move  him  more  than  does  human  passion. 
The  past  and  its  allure;  strange,  rare  and 
precious,  alien  things;  these  stir  him.  The 
Venice  of  bygone  ages ;  medieval  Florence ;  the 
Vienna  of  semi-Oriental  Empire  days ;  all  peri- 
ods rococo  and  baroque  rejoice  his  lyric  moods. 
His  words  haunt  you,  like  music ;  but  you  find, 
when  the  melody  is  still,  that  there  was,  after 
all,  nothing  but  words,  words. 

Poems  short  and  long  he  wrote  in  great  num- 
bers. Some  of  them  he  called  "  dramatic,"  but 
they  were  seldom  other  than  exercises  in  rhymed 
virtuosity.  Dominantly  Von  Hoffmansthal  is 
poet  and  philologist.  The  beauty  of  his  lan- 
guage sometimes  threatens  to  intoxicate  him- 
self as  well  as  his  readers.  Such  patrician  per- 
fection of  style  has  never  before  been  reached 


HUGO  VON   HOFFMANSTHAL        287 

in  German  as  you  may  find  in  even  his  earliest 
"  Yesterday,"  and  his  later  "  Ballade  des 
Auesseren  Lebens  "  (now  to  be  had  in  his  Col- 
lected Poems,  1909).  In  that  ballad's  title  the 
poet  expressed  his  entire  attitude;  the  exter- 
nals, the  embroideries,  of  life  are  what  have  in- 
terested him.  Only  once,  perhaps,  in  "  Tor  und 
Tod,"  did  he  come  near  to  something  of  actual 
inner  experience,  when  he  told  the  tragedy  of 
an  aesthete's  life,  who  "  in  j  oy  of  art  had  lost  the 
joy  of  life,  who  did  not  use  his  art  to  enrich 
and  ennoble  his  life,  but  lived  in  art  alone." 

He  voiced  the  pathos  of  his  own  art  in  these 
lines: 

"  Ich  hab'  mich  so  an  Kiinstliches  verloren, 
Dass  ich  die  Sonne  sah  aus  toten  Augen, 
Und  nicht  mehr  horte,  als  durch  tote  Ohren: 
Stets  schleppte  ich  den  rathselhaften   Fluch, 
Nie  ganz  bewusst,  nie  vollig  unbewusst, 
Mit  kleinem  Leid  und  schaler  Lust 
Mein  Leben  zu  erleben  wie  ein  Buch,  .  .  ." 

certain  essentials  of  which  may  be  given :  "  So 
was  I  lost  in  artifice,  that  only  with  dead  eyes 
I  saw  the  sun,  and  only  heard  with  deadened 
ears;  eternally  I  am  accursed  ...  to  live  my 
life  as  if  it  were  a  book.  .  .  ." 

In  sheer  diction,  sheer  lyric  form,  Hoff- 
mansthal  is  unsurpassed.  He  is  Goethe's 
Homunculus:  the  aesthete  of  complicated  soul, 
precociously  a  genius.  A  virtuoso  in  words,  but 
never  giving  you  the  voice  of  humanity.  The 


288          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

problems  of  soul  he  chooses  are  age-old  legend- 
ary ones;  the  subjects  for  him  are  the  same  the 
antique  poets  took,  he  embroiders  them  anew, 
until  for  the  clinging  beauty  of  the  newer  vine- 
leaves  you  can  no  longer  see  the  ancient  tragic 
tree.  His  is  a  triumph  of  Viennese  verbal  con- 
fectionery applied  upon  material  as  old  as  the 
centuries.  His  is  the  absolute  final  point  to  be 
reached  in  mere  beauty,  mere  literary  skill.  He 
has  added  nothing  to  the  Sophocles  stories  he 
modernized,  save  artifice.  When  he  tried  to  be 
dramatic  without  aid  of  his  enchanting  versifi- 
cation, in  his  prose  play,  "  Christina's  Heim- 
reise,"  1910,  he  failed  completely ;  that  episode 
proved,  had  it  been  necessary,  that  as  dramatist 
he  has  never  had  proper  inspiration,  however 
lovely  he  has  been  as  poet.  As  to  his  newest 
poetic  libretto,  to  Strauss's  "  Rosencavalier " 
it  is  still  too  soon  to  judge. 

The  loveliness  of  Von  Hoffmansthal's  Ger- 
man defies  translation.  Arthur  Symons'  version 
of  "  Elektra  "  gives  us  much,  yet  misses  much. 
Loveliness,  fastidiousness,  whimsicality  —  these 
essentially  Viennese  qualities  have  been  most 
beautifully  expressed  by  Von  Hoffmansthal. 
The  charm  of  Vienna  is  in  its  outer,  not  its  inner 
life.  Yet  it  is  too  soon  to  say,  though  so  far 
he  has  shown  no  advance  in  art,  his  style  having 
been  as  perfect  at  nineteen  as  it  is  to-day,  what 
this  poet  may  not  yet  do.  He  is  only  thirty- 


HUGO  VON   HOFFMANSTHAL         289 

six  now.  One  provincial  theatre  in  Germany 
has  already  inscribed  on  its  proscenium  arch 
these  names :  "  Goethe,  Schiller,  Hauptmann, 
Von  Hoffmansthal."  This  much  at  least  is 
sure :  in  a  medium  far  less  filled  with  inevitable 
music,  he  has  already  equalled  for  sheer  beauty 
of  style  and  diction  the  Italian  D'Annunzio. 


XVI 

BAHR    AND    FINIS 

HERMANN  BAHR  was  the  leader,  long  ago,  of 
all  those  forces  which  were  gathered  together 
as  "Young  Vienna"  (Jung  Wien)  ;  he  most 
suffered  from  the  "  merely  clever  "  label  applied 
by  the  northerners ;  and  it  is  he  who  has  finally 
written  the  play  through  which  Viennese  drama 
has  most  completely  won  international  recogni- 
tion to-day. 

One  of  those  pioneers  of  Green  Germany  re- 
ferred to  in  an  earlier  chapter  ventured  the 
prophecy  that  through  drama  the  revival  of  art 
in  his  country  would  first  come  to  general  recog- 
nition. If  we  consider  them  as  apart,  it  was 
Young  Vienna  rather  than  Young  Germany 
that  eventually  accomplished  that  feat.  Her- 
mann Bahr's  play,  "  The  Concert,"  for  human- 
ity, for  actual  grip  of  life  and  character,  has 
accomplished,  in  immediate  popular  acclaim 
abroad,  more  than  anything  of  Sudermann's  or 
Hauptmann's.  Among  other  things  it  has 
brought  to  Vienna  the  curiosity  and  cupidity 
of  English  and  American  managers. 
290 


BAHE  AND  FINIS  291 

For  operetta,  in  this  century  or  that,  Vienna 
has  often  enough  been  the  lodestone  of  the 
world.  Franz  Lehar's  "  Lustige  Witwe  "  had 
so  world-wide  a  triumph  that  ever  since  then  an 
army  of  theatrical  agents  has  been  camped  in 
Vienna  eager  to  buy  everything  lest  even  the 
most  infinitesimal  chance  of  profit  escape.  To 
the  ironic  observer  this  state  of  things  has  been 
full  of  material.  Nowhere  are  people  more 
imitative  than  in  theatrical  affairs.  If  A  has 
written  a  success,  then  it  is  better  to  ask  A  to 
write  another  than  to  depend  on  one's  own  taste 
to  discover  B ;  if  the  town  of  C  has  produced 
a  musical  triumph  then  the  thing  to  do  is  to 
lie  in  wait  there  for  what  it  may  next  do,  rather 
than  to  try  what  may  have  been  composed  un- 
der one's  very  nose! 

In  the  first  years  in  which  I  was  annually 
adding  to  my  appreciation  of  these  masks  and 
minstrels  of  New  Germany,  I  never  ceased  won- 
dering at  the  blindness  of  English  and  Amer- 
ican managers  in  not  realizing  the  value  of  this 
or  that  German  or  French  operetta  or  play.  In 
the  years  since  Lehar  wrote  his  "  Merry 
Widow  "  my  wonder  has  rather  been  as  to  what 
manner  of  persons  those  were  whom  our  mana- 
gers appointed  to  watch  the  German  theatre. 
Their  only  motto  seems  to  be :  Buy  everything, 
lest  something  escape!  Buy,  above  all  else,  ac- 
complished successes.  To  know  a  great  play  by 


292          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

its  intrinsic  merit  is  not  the  part  of  these  gen- 
tlemen. We  may  expect,  presently,  some  fear- 
ful and  wonderful  performances  in  our  theatres 
as  a  result  of  the  sleepless  activity  of  our  thea- 
trical agents  in  the  various  continental  capitals, 
especially  Vienna.  For  the  success  of  Bahr's 
"  The  Concert "  (furthered  in  America  by  a 
fellow-countryman,  equally  skilful  as  actor  and 
adaptor,  Leo  Ditrichstein )  has  now  taught  the 
"  box-office  "  intelligence  that  not  only  oper- 
ettas, but  comedies  and  other  specimens  of 
"  legitimate "  drama  are  to  be  discovered  in 
Vienna. 

"  The  Concert's "  story  has  already  been 
adequately  mentioned  in  the  chapter  on  Hart- 
leben.  This  play  definitely  gained  for  its  au- 
thor what  all  his  rich  and  varied  previous  ac- 
complishments had  failed  to  bring  him:  the 
complete  and  serious  appreciation  of  his  own 
country.  It  broke  down  utterly  the  old  sneer 
which  he  had  heard  all  his  working  life,  to  the 
effect  that,  like  all  else  of  Vienna,  he  was  su- 
premely clever  —  and  nothing  more. 

If  I  close  my  book  with  Hermann  Bahr,  it  is 
also  through  him  that  we  can  return  to  the  very 
beginnings  of  all  this  youthful  ferment  in  Ger- 
many. Hardly  any  rebellion,  movement  or  en- 
terprise in  all  this  period  was  without  Bahr  as 
one  of  the  leaders.  He  has  been  the  journalistic 
and  artistic  chameleon  of  his  time.  His  have 


BAHR  AND  FINIS  293 

been  the  appreciation  and  encouragement  that 
spurred  most  of  the  talent  contemporary  with 
him.  That  you  may  feel  this  side  of  him  fully, 
let  me  cite  this  one  detail,  which,  if  you  have 
read  this  book  with  anything  like  care,  should 
impress  you: 

The  dedication  of  Bierbaum's  "  Stilpe " 
(1897)  runs  "To  Hermann  Bahr  —  in  hearti- 
est admiration." 

Bahr  was  born,  1863,  in  Linz.  Versatility 
marked  him  early;  at  school  he  was  beginning 
to  write,  and  even  thinking  of  the  stage  as  a 
career.  He  went  to  college  in  Vienna,  Graz  and 
Czernowitz,  finally  finishing  in  Berlin.  There 
he  joined  the  naturalistic  art  movement  of  Arno 
Holz.  Eighteen  hundred  and  eighty-seven  he 
returned  to  Austria  to  serve  his  military  period ; 
then  he  fared  forth  into  the  world  of  art,  of 
travel,  of  life.  Eighteen  hundred  and  eighty- 
eight  found  him  in  Paris;  thence  he  journeyed 
into  Spain  and  Morocco ;  returning  to  Berlin  in 
1889,  an  accomplished  citizen  of  the  world,  ver- 
satile in  all  the  tricks  of  journalism  and  art. 
There  was  no  new  note,  no  new  undercurrent 
of  intellectual  enterprise  that  he  did  not  dis- 
cover quickly  and  join.  He  became  editor  of 
the  Free  Stage  magazine,  which  printed  his  first 
novel,  "  Die  Gute  Schule  "  (The  Good  School). 
Eighteen  hundred  and  ninety-one  he  visited  St. 
Petersburg,  the  next  year  he  came  to  Vienna  to 


294          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

enter  upon  the  important  business  of  introduc- 
ing there  all  those  young  hopes  and  ferments 
of  Green  Germany  that  he  had  found  in  Berlin. 
He  stirred  up  Young  Vienna  into  enthusiasm 
for  a  really  national  Austrian  literature;  he 
made  the  Cafe  Griensteidl,  and  several  other 
coffee-houses,  rallying  points  for  his  flock. 
Among  his  followers  were  "  Loris  "  (Hugo  von 
Hoffmansthal),  Arthur  Schnitzler,  Richard 
Beer-Hoffmann,  Felix  Dormann,  and  Peter  Al- 
tenberg. 

For  years  Bahr  was  known  abroad  rather  as 
critic  of  the  theatre  and  kindred  arts  than  as 
creative  artist.  He  was  critic  first  of  the 
Deutsche  Zeitung,  then  of  Die  Zeit,  then  of  the 
Neue  Wiener  Tageblatt.  His  appreciations 
and  enthusiasm  spurred  countless  young  artistic 
energies,  notably  those  of  the  Viennese  actors, 
Mitterwurzer  and  Kainz  (who  died  a  few 
months  ago),  of  the  philosopher,  E.  Mach,  the 
painter,  Klimt,  the  decorator,  Olbrich,  and  the 
poets  Stifter  and  Stelzhamer.  By  visits  to 
Paris,  London  and  Italy  he  kept  his  comprehen- 
sion wide.  Always  he  was  in  the  forefront  of 
international  appreciation  and  discovery.  He 
always  knew  the  books,  or  plays,  of  the  hour 
before  anyone  else  did. 

In  his  own  work  he  was  a  change-artist  of 
amazing  versatility.  Just  as  he  could  feel 
everything,  so  could  he  himself  express  every- 


BAHR  AND  FINIS  295 

thing.  Change,  change !  that  was  his  constant 
motto.  As  a  journalist  he  could  prove  every- 
thing, without  believing  anything.  He  was  a 
mummer  in  literature;  there  was  no  part  he 
could  not  play.  His  ego  was  fluid.  It  had 
many  changing  faces,  the  faces  of  Zola,  Taine, 
Manet,  Ibsen,  Strindberg,  Marx,  Huysmans, 
Maupassant,  Maeterlinck,  Baudelaire,  Puvis  de 
Chavannes,  Nietzsche,  Raimund,  la  Duse, 
Goethe,  Klimt,  Sada  Yacco  and  all  her  coun- 
try's artists.  Through  all  his  changes,  his  en- 
thusiasms for  this  or  that  artist  or  movement, 
one  passion  only  remained  constant  in  him  — 
though  in  1906  he  renounced  even  that!  —  the 
passion  for  Austrian  nationalism  in  art. 

Always,  until  he  wrote  "  The  Concert,"  the 
world  refused  to  take  him  seriously.  They 
called  him  typical  of  the  degenerate  insincerity, 
the  unstable  emotions,  of  his  country.  He  com- 
plained, once,  "  If  they  hand  us  a  compliment, 
they  never  do  it  without  also  making  an  excuse 
for  us.  One  wishes  they  would  treat  us  more 
harshly,  if  only  they  would  take  us  more  seri- 
ously." That  was  the  world's  attitude  toward 
Hermann  Bahr  and  the  Young  Vienna  he  stood 
for.  You  could  not  blame  the  world,  perhaps, 
for  thinking  Bahr  an  artist  in  everchanging  at- 
titudes, since  he  himself,  in  one  of  his  most 
cynically  journalistic  moods,  had  called  himself 
an  "  agent  of  literature."  He  seemed  to  ex- 


296          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

press  all  the  neurasthenia  and  feminism  inherent 
in  Viennese  art.  Yet  none  realized  and  warned 
against  those  very  qualities  more  than  he.  He 
not  only  appreciated,  but  analyzed,  was  intro- 
spective as  well  as  farsighted. 

The  critic's  desk,  said  the  others,  was  Bahr's 
place,  not  life  itself;  the  sofa,  and  not  life  it- 
self, was  the  place  for  his  disciples.  He  typi- 
fied not  art,  but  only  activity.  In  his  fever  to 
be  ahead  of  the  fashion,  he  ran  after  it. 
Through  the  countless  changes  it  had  to  un- 
dergo, his  own  ego  lost  its  own  identity.  His 
style  became  such  fluid  journalese  that  it  be- 
came as  unindividual  as  it  was  unreadable.  He 
became  resigned  to  the  passing  of  what  had  once 
been  upon  his  time  and  his  country's  art  a  great 
influence.  He  was  burnt  out,  written  out.  .  .  . 
And  so  on,  and  so  on,  Bahr's  detractors  had 
been  writing  him  down  in  the  contemporary 
chronicles,  until  it  seems  somewhat  malicious  of 
him  to  have  confounded  them  with  "  The  Con- 
cert," through  which  the  whole  school  of  Vien- 
nese drama  takes  a  place  in  international  ac- 
claim which  it  has  not  enjoyed  in  our  time.  It 
is  not  too  much  to  say  that  in  this  success  re- 
turns for  the  Austrian  stage  a  reflex  of  the 
golden  age  of  Grillparzer. 

While,  up  to  this  recent  triumph,  Bahr's 
most  serious  creation  had  been  considered  his 
novel,  "  The  Good  School,"  he  had  worked  f re- 


BAHB,  AND  FINIS  297 

quently  in  drama.  His  plays  include  "  Jose- 
fine,"  "  Der  Star,"  satire  of  theatrical  life  in 
Vienna,  "  Die  Mutter,"  which  tried  to  out- 
Wedekind  Wedekind,  "  Der  Athlet  "  (The  Ath- 
lete), "  Wienerinnen "  (Viennese  Women), 
"  Der  Meister  "  (The  Master),  done  in  Amer- 
ica at  the  Irving  Place  Theatre  in  1910,  "  Die 
Andere"  (The  Other  Woman),  and  "Der 
Apostel "  (The  Apostle)  produced  with  no  lit- 
tle success  in  Petersburg.  Also  there  was  the 
play,  "  The  Yellow  Nightingale,"  in  which 
some  people  found  an  obvious  travesty  of  the 
character  and  methods  of  Max  Reinhardt,  the 
internationally  famous  stage  director  of  the 
Deutsche  Theater  in  Berlin.  The  episode  of 
the  foisting  upon  German  audiences  of  the 
"  yellow  nightingale "  an  allegedly  famous 
Australian  artist,  actually  only  a  Hungarian; 
the  burlesque  of  Berlin  stage  conditions;  were, 
as  always,  admitted  to  be  clever  and  amusing, 
but  nothing  more.  People  still  continued, 
though  Bahr  wrote  volumes  of  criticism,  novels 
(his  newest,  1910,  being  "O  Mensch")  and 
short  stories,  to  declare  that  as  a  man  of  letters 
he  had  the  gestures  of  a  journalist,  as  journal- 
ist the  gestures  of  a  man  of  letters  —  that  he 
was  effective,  in  short,  only  in  his  gestures. 

The  chronicle  of  Hermann  Bahr's  career  as 
it  exists  in  most  of  the  more  solemn  German 
documents,  will  now  have  to  be  revised.  It  will 


298          MASKS  AND  MINSTRELS 

have  to  be  admitted,  as  graciously  as  possible, 
that  "  The  Concert "  proved  him  more  than 
merely  clever  or  amusing,  but  possessed  of  an 
understanding  of  and  sympathy  for  human 
character  that  lift  him  into  the  front  rank 
among  contemporary  dramatists. 

•         ••••••• 

IF  you  have  come  with  me  so  far,  you  have 
seen  how  secessions  and  ferments,  working  up 
through  the  Uberbrettl'  in  one  place,  and  the 
Young  Vienna  movement  in  another,  eventually 
produced  an  actual  and  valuable  tale  of  achieve- 
ment in  the  literature  and  drama  of  that  Ger- 
many which  we  may  still  justly  call  Young.  If 
personal  prejudice  may  seem  to  have  gone  for 
as  much  in  my  book  as  careful  appraisal  in  a 
scale  of  critical  justice;  if  this  be,  in  fact,  only 
a  record  of  individual  adventures  in  modern 
German  story,  song  and  play ;  yet  I  venture  to 
think  you  will,  in  feeling  some  of  my  own  emo- 
tions, or  even  in  taking  issue  with  some  of  my 
opinions,  gain  from  these  pages  a  little  enthu- 
siasm for  the  subject. 

That  enthusiasm  can  be  communicated,  that 
a  new  interest  in  a  new  subject  can  be  stirred, 
by  any  of  the  conventional  literary  formulas, 
I  have  never  believed.  Only  as  we  ourselves  have 
vividly  felt  this  or  that  sensation  in  life  or  the 
arts,  can  we  pass  such  sensation  on.  What  this 
book  has  tried  to  convey  is  the  personal  impres- 


299 

sion  of  one  who  believes  in  only  individual  taste 
and  appreciation.  That  personal  impression 
is  to  be  summed  up  once  again  and  for  the  last 
time,  thus : 

German  literature  may  in  this  century  flower 
in  this  direction  or  in  that,  it  will  always  be  in 
the  soil  fructified  by  those  I  have  here  empha- 
sized that  you  will  find  its  roots. 


Christmas,  1910. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REQ 


A    001  364  763 


